Not All These Clemency Efforts Were Worth Celebrating

smiling President Biden
Zain Murdock
January 28, 2025

After facing criticism for pardoning his son, Hunter, President Biden pardoned 39 people with non-violent convictions and commuted the sentences of 1,499 people in home confinement from COVID-19, making December 12, 2024, the “largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.”

In 2024, we witnessed devastating back-to-back executions. Trump announced plans to execute the entire federal death row population. Black activists demanded death row clemency, noting that Biden’s promise to abolish the death penalty disappeared from his administration and the Democrats' 2024 platform. Then came a major move.

On December 23, Biden commuted 37 of 40 federal death row sentences. Left behind were those sentenced for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing, and Dylann Roof, for the Charleston church massacre. But if Biden’s administration meant to send a message, it’s a murky one.

The federal prison population has increased and is disproportionately Black. Rep. Cori Bush claimed that Biden failed to keep his campaign promise to reduce incarceration. Victims were shocked when Biden commuted Michael Conahan’s sentence. He is the infamous “kids for cash” judge who received illegal kickbacks for funneling Pennsylvania children into for-profit prisons.

Biden’s term is over. But the devastation caused by the criminal legal system didn’t start or end with him. Relying on punishment as justice, and assuming that progress is only possible through the whims of the powerful few are what make these inconsistencies inevitable.

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