Biden Commutes 37 of 40 Federal Death Sentences to Life in Prison
Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers will remain on death row.

President Joe Biden commuted the federal death sentences for 37 of 40 inmates on death row.
On Saturday, Stacey wrote about the possibility of Biden commuting the sentences.
“Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole,” stated Biden. “These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
The only ones he did not commute:
- Dylann Roof murdered nine black people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, in June 2015.
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber.
- Robert Bowers, the man who murdered 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue.
Biden even admitted he commuted the sentences so President-elect Donald Trump couldn’t execute them.
“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he said.
Then…then why not add Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers?
I hate the death penalty at all levels. All 40 inmates should have life in prison sentences.
Either all or none.
It’s all about politics. It would be politically dangerous to commute those three sentences and the Democrats know that.
“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden also said.
Then commute all of them. Stop playing games. This is another reason to end the death penalty. It allows you to play games with a person’s life.
I’m going to research the 37 prisoners. It is NOT easy to get the federal death penalty. I’ll add to this post as I learn more about the prisoners.
Jorge Avila-Torrez
Avila-Torrez is so notorious he has a Wikipedia page! In 2005, he murdered Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, on Mother’s Day.
WHOA. Authorities nabbed Jerry Hobbs, Laura’s father. He confessed to the crime even though he didn’t do it. The makes of this podcast disabled sharing, but you can watch it on YouTube. It’s about the police totally messing up and sending an innocent man to prison.
Hobbs spent FIVE years in jail awaiting trial.
I cannot stress this enough. Guilty or innocent…ALWAYS have a lawyer with you. Never ever talk to law enforcement without a lawyer.
A semen sample on Laura did not match Jerry.
So while the police failed, Avila-Torrez joined the Marines.
In 2009, he murdered Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Amanda Jean Snell, 20, in 2009.
Avila-Torrez managed to dodge the police again.
Authorities finally caught him after Avila-Torrez abducted two women he stalked in Northern Virginia. He took one woman to a secluded area. He raped her and left her for dead.
Thank God she survived and went to the police. The authorities got his DNA and attached him to other crimes.
Hobbs received a huge settlement. I doubt it makes up not just for his treatment but the fact that he lost his daughter:
In February 2014, while Avila-Torrez was incarcerated for the crimes, Hobbs accepted a $7.75 million settlement from numerous law enforcement agencies and municipalities connected with the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. It was brokered by attorney Kathleen Zellner, who specializes in wrongful conviction cases.
He subsequently began appearing at wrongful conviction seminars as a panelist, and his case was a lightning rod in drawing attention to the county for its series of wrongful convictions under former Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Waller. The admissions often involved allegedly coerced confessions through questionable interrogation methods employed by the Waukegan Police Department, under the county task force aegis.
Thomas Sanders
Biden commuted Thomas Sanders’ death sentence. From Clarion Ledger:
He met Suellen Roberts there, and the two began a romantic relationship, which came to a tragic end when Sanders, Suellen and Lexis Roberts went away together over the Labor Day holiday in 2010. After visiting a wildlife park near the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Sanders shot Suellen Roberts with a .22-caliber rifle and left her body near an asphalt pit along a desert highway.
He then traveled from Arizona, through New Mexico and Texas, and ended up in a wooded area on Boothe Cemetery Road, where most of his maternal family is buried, and shot Lexis four times – three times in the head and once in the chest. He then slashed her throat four times and with so much force, the knife left cut marks on her cervical vertebra.
Though Sanders was specific in his descriptions of the placement of Suellen Roberts’ body and in the way he killed Lexis, he told mental health experts he couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about anything else.
Only Sanders knows why he killed Suellen and Lexis Roberts.
Anthony Battle
Anthony Battle received the federal death penalty in 1997 for murdering prison guard D’Antonio Washington, 31, in 1994. From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Battle was sentenced to die by an Atlanta jury for the Dec. 21, 1994, killing of 31-year-old guard D’Antonio Washington. Battle repeatedly struck Washington in the back of the head with a ball-peen hammer at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
At the time, Battle was already serving a life sentence for the 1987 murder of his wife, a U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Battle, whose lawyers said he was schizophrenic, was given a chance at the end of his trial to ask jurors to spare his life. Instead, he told them that Washington “died like a dog.”

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Comments
“Biden commutes 37 out of 40 Federal Death Sentences”
Or to put it another way, the three white guys are still on death row.
https://x.com/KathleenWinche3/status/1871250218584277352
Guy admits he might have killed 29 or 30 but isn’t going to tell the police about where the bodies are buried. He enjoyed murdering them, cutting them up.
To have kept him alive this long is a crime.
Jenn Martin
@Jennbmartin
This guy cut up women and ate there private parts. He told a podcast that the lady’s vj taste like bacon. This guy is sick
His comment is offensive but not surprising. There’s a reason “long pork” is a nickname for human meat.
One word: Disgusting.
Brandon continues to be the anti-Trump. What a POS.
Biden Anti-Trump? That man is against God and every thing that is decent in this world.
More like the puppet-master pulling FJB’s strings. I don’t think he even has the mental capacity to issue these latest pardons, let alone every other heinous action since Nov 5th.
If he lacks the mental capacity, are his commutations valid?
I wonder about that too. If he is non compos mentis he cannot enter into or sign off on any legal contracts.. Any agreements made with them can be voided.
or be invalidated later on grounds of being non compos mentis.
I wondered the same thing. At a minimum, it would be welcomed by the victims’ families and politically popular for Trump to challenge the commutations and, for that matter, any other legal action taken recently.
Unfortunately, unless the 25th amendment is invoked, I would say yes. The only other recourse is to take specific action to SCOTUS. One would need to be very selective about which ones, however.
If he lacks mental capacity, why does he have his finger on the nuclear button? The president is supposed to have a code. Who keeps the code? Not him.
Who would decide? Not him. How long would it take to make a decision? Longer than it would take a missile to come from Russia.
An illegal set fire to a woman in the NYC Subway. Maybe, Joe can pardon him on his way out the door!
And I know the 25th amendment is being brought up … but that’s to remove a president from office…in uncharted waters but I think he could be found to have been non compos mentis at the end of his term while he is signing off on this crap… I think some prosecutors or victims families might have a case. Just because he wasn’t removed via the 25th does not mean he was mentally competent
Only if Trump can prove it. The latest report is that he has good days and bad days. We saw some good days, or at least good hours, while he was still running for reelection. So to challenge these commutations and carry out the executions, Trump would have to prove that they weren’t made during a good time, perhaps right after a nap.
Victims’ families have no standing. Only the president (or the DOJ acting in his name) has standing, if he seeks to execute them despite the commutations. But the onus would be on him to prove that they were invalid.
If you are diagnosed with dementia that’s it… you have it…it’s not oh gee well grandma signed the will on a “good day” or Uncle Bill agreed to have the windows all replaced on a “bad day” … that’s not how it works.
Legally that is how it works. A person who is sometimes competent can make decisions at those times. If Trump wants to invalidate one of his acts as president, he would have to prove that he was incompetent at that moment.
You are actually incorrect… I don’t know if you are an attorney or it you just like to try to project yourself as one… but you clearly do NOT understand this issue. I have years of experience in this area…… and if I go into court and testify what an assessment showed regarding level of cognitive impairment the judge NEVER follows up with … well was it a “good day”.
My support of the death penalty is that just like POS Biden is demonstrating now, because of radical judges, politicians for sale, and just general bleeding heart nonsense, ‘life in prison’ means NO SUCH THING.
Seriously. Go read the list of crimes the people on death row have committed.
These are scum that have to be removed from society, and the death penalty is the only way to ensure that they won’t be released by some idiot leftist 20 years down the road.
Usually death sentences mean no repeat offenders. Joe screwed that up too.
Wonder when these new commuted sentences are eligible for parole now.
They’re not. The commutation was to life without parole. But so long as they’re alive there’s still a chance that some future president might further commute their sentences.
None of the 37 are defenseless in the womb.
If I had a time machine, I would send every single person who believes in abortion back to their mother’s womb so they could be aborted.
agreed with Paula
funny how no one who was aborted still supports abortion!
If they were about to be aborted, abortion supporters would cry out, “No! No! Not me! Abortion is for others.”
Very on-brand for Democrats.
Far more accurate statement:
While Mr. Biden was having his Depends changed, a White House staffer that is adamantly opposed to the death penalty received a lucrative bribe to obtain a commutation for one of these prisoners. Wanting to cover his/her tracks, more than one prisoner was included. Some were excluded for the same reason.
Joe Biden is completely unaware of any of this.
My point exactly.
This is Joe Biden and/or his henchmen spitting in the face of the law. The crimes these people have committed are beyond heinous, and every one of them was sentenced to death after a very laborious judicial process. These people have forfeited their right to life by taking the life of others in unimaginably gruesome ways..
“This is Joe Biden and/or his henchmen spitting in the face of the law.”
Not to mention the faces of the victim’s families.
Biden doesn’t care about the families or their dead loved ones.
It’s complete injustice that you can murder people and not only keep your life but enjoy the comforts of food, shelter, best medical care in the world, read, work-out, watch TV, write letters to adoring fans, etc. etc.
But, but, but NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!
Unless you are a serial murderer who Joe Biden gave a get out of death free card.
The LAW sent these people to death row.
Barack O Blah Blah said don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f”ck things up. He proves it every day.
That’s up to Congress, not the President. Except he seems to be making exceptions for the bogus category “hate.”
Biden has surpassed Jimmy Carter as the worst President in the last half century.
Narcissist-incompetent-dunce, Obama, is still the worst. His rotten tenure was hugely destructive, and, set the stage for everything that is transpiring, today.
This was just Obama’s third term. I doubt China Joe* knows what’s going on.
That happened a LONG time ago. Carter was a horrible president with the best of intentions. The guy graduated from the naval academy and served on nuclear subs when they were still in their infancy. Despite being wrong in every imaginable way about all foreign policy and most domestic policy, Carter was a thoroughly decent person, good father and faithful husband for almost 80-years.
Joe Biden isn’t ANY of those things and there’s more than a little credible evidence he sold America out to the highest bidder. I think there’s a strong argument he’s the worst, most corrupt US president, ever.
Jimmy Carter’s mind is healthier than Joe Biden’s, he’s not as mentally confused and is able to think more clearly.
Well, he voted for Joe, so you couldn’t prove it by me.
Cloward Piven $30k-$300k per prisoner per year for life. Plus, without building more prisons, subsequent demoncraps will get house arrest with ankle monitors. The commutations just make it the public’s responsibility to defend themselves in gun free zones. Better to drag them out back, give them a double tap, and bill the estate for the ammo.
With his last days dwindly, Dementia Joe will issue posthumous Presidential Medals of Freedom to Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Robert E. Lee, and Lee Harvey Oswold.
IIRC, a member of Congress got his fellow members to recognize a guy for his population control efforts. The guy was the Boston Strangler. The Congressman was just pointing out how members vote without researching what they’re voting on. China Joe* is signing without knowing what he’s signing.
One of these is not like the others.
Yes. Very not like. But still not actually worthy of a medal.
Worthy of many medals, depending on the viewpoint of the awarding authority. Just not that particular medal. by that particular authority.
Fair point.
I wonder who actually came up with the list and then who actually signed this off because it sure as hell wasn’t senile 10% china Joe.
Democrats favor criminals. It is just a fact of their existence at this point.
There are five or six military prisoners sitting on death row in Ft. Leavenworth, with the most famous likely being Nidal Hasan, who murdered 13 (including a baby in utero) in a 2009 terrorist attack at Ft Hood. From what I can tell, Biden hasn’t commuted those sentences….yet. Without an execution since 1961 (and a death warrant signed by EISENHOWER) , the military’s capital punishment mechanism is even more dysfunctional than the Fed’s. Biden – his handlers – may have calculated that there’s no way any of those sitting in Ft Leavenworth are going to be put to death during Trump’s tenure. That’s probably an accurate assessment
Trump has a lot on his plate. But, a thorough overhaul and house cleaning of the JAG Corps would be something Hegseth should definitely focus on. It’s disastrous, full of some of the most outrageously progressive lawyers & judges in the country.
It’s only December 23.
He’s got 27 days left yet…
I understand Biden’s handlers are working on a list of last minute pardons for him to sign, but it’s so long they have finished typing it yet.
Schindler’s list this ain’t.
Has he pardoned everyone left in Gitmo yet? Or hasn’t Obama gotten around to ordering that
Biden is using his last months in office to cement his horrible legacy; commuting 37 death sentences, selling off the remaining uninstalled Trump border wall materials, ignoring the plight of those without housing from Hurricanes, sending billions more $ to Ukraine, a host of bad regulatory actions among other things.
Seems like just Professional Courtesy to fellow criminals.
As POTUS, Trump could force Biden to undergo a psychiatric exam and if found incompetent, undo much of his actions. Is this possible?
No, it’s not possible. He can’t force him to do anything, and even if he were found incompetent in late January that wouldn’t prove he was incompetent at the time he ordered these commutations.
You’re right; why not release them all? His admin is either for or against the death penalty. What about the jury in these trials? They gave the death sentence. This is our system and now this dementia ridden man and his deranged admin are just blowing that all up. These scum are a danger to everyone. That danger doesn’t stop because they killed their chosen target (victim).
The jury is irrelevant. This is our system, but presidential clemency is also our system.
And it’s consistent to say he’s against the death penalty except in certain cases. Most people are against the death penalty “except in certain cases”, it’s just that most of us would allow more “certain cases” than Biden says he would.
Democrats: the party preferred by 4 out of 5 criminals.
I am ambivalent about the death penalty for those who can be locked up until they die, and society will be safe.
However, for those who are a danger to society, even if locked up, they should be executed within a couple of years of being convicted. That means they need the very best defense and prosecuting attorneys and judges, so there is no reason to reverse the conviction. The court reporters and clerks need to prepare the record for appeal quickly and completely. Their appeals should get priority.
Jeff Jacoby, “The Death Penalty By The Numbers,” 12/19/2002 Boston Globe
In late 1993, when I was living in MA, two cop-killers serving life sentences escaped the state prison and rummaged around the Cambridge area for many days until they were re-apprehended. I don’t recall offhand whether or not they committed additional violent crimes while on that little vacation.
I am not unconcerned by the potential for injustice when an incompetent or corrupt government sentences an innocent man to death. But I am also not unconcerned by the potential for escapes, releases due to clerical errors, and other such incidents.
This is one thing that Biden has been consistent on. In fact it might be the only thing. He is opposed to the death penalty and paused them when he entered office. Now he changed them to life in prison without parole which tracks. As for the 3 he didn’t commute, I think he made some garbled statement about not pardoning mass murderers just single or double murderers or something.
I disagree with it but it is what it is.
Well then why did he pardon a couple of guys that killed 5 or 6…. One I think was responsible for a lot more. You err terribly by claiming Biden has been consistent on any issue. The only thing he ever did consistently was prioritize his own interests and grift.
Oh wait… he was consistent on being absolutely wrong on every single foreign matter of significance.
I think he may have been right on partitioning Iraq. I think it’s an idea that should have been given serious consideration, and I’m sure Bush didn’t give it any. Partition might have created a US-friendly Shi’ite state to rival Iran for primacy among Shi’ites, and our Kurdish friends surely deserved a fully independent state of their own.
The main reason we’ve never supported an independent Kurdistan was so as not to piss Turkey off, but after the Turks screwed us in the Iraq invasion that became a plus rather than a minus.
The usually expressed reason to even have a death penalty is to deter future murderers and there is little evidence that it does. Even if there was such evidence, it would be lost without the concurrent concept of immediacy – You kill somebody, you go to trial, and then they take you out and hang you. None of this crap of 20 years of appeals. However, history proves that that doesn’t work either. I don’t have any idea of the actual statistics, but under the current system a killer has a better chance of dying of natural causes than being executed, and even if they are executed, no effort is spared to make it as gentle a process as possible. No deterrent effect there.
I know that sounds like I’m anti-death penalty, but I’m not. Capital crimes should be punished with capital punishment. I think that in many cases it’s completely appropriate – but only if promptly administered.
Sen. Kennedy (LA) has a long thread on the specifics of the people that Biden just pardoned/commuted. Several of the convicted murders already on death row would go onto murder other prisoners. I think at least three of the 37 who were granted clemency murdered multiple people while in prison. This is something to also keep in mind. Being sent to prison shouldn’t itself be a death sentence. But, given the depravity of so many who are already in prison just waiting to murder again, it often times is a death sentence. Biden just pardoned no less than three of them.
Makes my point. If they’d been promptly executed, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to commit further crimes, in or out of prison. I believe the quote is “justice delayed is justice denied”, or some such.
It was clear to me before the election of 2020 that Biden was mentally gone and the media was shielding him. Since then I know Biden is not running things, but is just signing what is put in front of him. It is likely Obama is in charge or someone else in the Obama run staff. No reason to stop the Death Penalty or let people out of prison from Biden as Biden is brain dead. .
Professional courtesy.
So he was already serving life, and now as a result of murdering a prison guard he will get . . . life?! The next time he has an opportunity to murder someone, exactly what disincentive does he have? Why should he not murder anyone he can and feels like, if there’s nothing more that can be done to him?
My son is employed in the NY prison system. It’s no comfort to know that one of these “lifers” could kill him without consequence.
This is why it’s stupid to say a life sentence should be the highest level of punishment. Once you’re there, you might as well make it worth your while.
I don’t believe for a second that Biden did any of this. If he did sign the pardons he is so impaired that I doubt he knew what he was signing.
It wouldn’t surprise me if his signature was just forged.