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A progressive House Democratic leader is praising President Biden’s sweep switch command for people on federal death row, calling the death penalty itself “racist.”
“The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 people on federal death row is a landmark and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address deep racial disparities in our criminal justice system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Massachusetts, in a statement Monday.
“The death penalty is a racist, flawed and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society.”
BIDEN sets record for first-term clemency grants, HERE’S LIKE OTHER PRESIDENTS
Rep. Ayanna Pressley called the death penalty “racist” in a statement praising President Biden’s clemency decision. (Getty Images)
Pressley argued that the death penalty has overwhelmingly targeted black and brown communities “and has failed to make America safer.”
The Massachusetts lawmaker, a member of the hardline group of House Democrats called “The Squad,” has been at the forefront of the progressive push to abolish the death penalty.
Biden’s clemency order affects almost everyone on federal death row in the United States.
only three of 40 the prisoners remain: Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.
Democrats increased pressure on Biden to act after the controversial pardon of his son Hunter. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, file)
Among those whose sentences were commuted to life imprisonment are Thomas Sanders, who kidnapped and killed a 12-year-old girl; Jorge Ávila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls and strangled a 20-year-old girl, Navy officer four years later; and Anthony Battle, who murdered an Atlanta prison guard with a hammer 30 years ago.
Democrats had increased pressure on Biden to use his clemency powers after the controversial and sweeping pardon he granted his son. Hunter Bidenjust weeks before he was expected to be sentenced on federal gun charges.
Biden heeded that pressure earlier this month when he commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 Americans on the order of a single day.
It comes as President-elect Trump has for months announced plans to extend the death penalty to drug traffickers, child rapists and illegal immigrants who kill US citizens.
At the end of his first term, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) carried out the first federal executions in 20 years, carrying out sentences for 13 federal prisoners on death row.
Senator Tom Cotton criticized Biden’s decision. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a top Trump ally, criticized Biden for his order on Monday.
“Once again, Democrats are siding with depraved criminals over their victims, public order, and common decency,” Cotton wrote in X.
“Democrats can’t even defend Biden’s outrageous decision as some kind of widespread, principled opposition to the death penalty because he didn’t commute the three politically toxic cases. Democrats are the party of politically convenient justice “.
