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The series of open letters from human rights activists and former corrections officials aligned with a larger push from Democrats for sweeping clemency action for those in prison.
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President Biden was expected to make more clemency announcements “at the end of his term,” his press secretary said last week., Bonnie Cash for The New York Times
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A group of human rights activists, former corrections officials and families of crime victims asked President Biden on Monday to use his clemency power to take all 40 inmates off federal death row before he hands over power to President-elect Donald J. Trump.
In a series of open letters, the group noted that Mr. Biden campaigned on opposing capital punishment. Mr. Trump supports the death penalty and restarted federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause during his first term.
“As your time in office comes to a close, there is an unprecedented need for you to cement your commitment to remedying injustices by exercising executive clemency and commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row,” one of the letters said.
The letters on Monday aligned with a larger effort by congressional Democrats and others to persuade Mr. Biden to use his clemency power to commute death sentences to life sentences without parole and to free people serving disproportionally long drug sentences.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said last week that Mr. Biden was expected to make more clemency announcements “at the end of his term.”
“He’s thinking through that process very thoroughly,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.
Presidents typically order a round of pardons toward the end of their time in office. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter — after repeatedly insisting he would not do so — erasing years of legal troubles, including a federal conviction for illegally buying a gun and for tax evasion.
Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, one of the president’s closest allies, joined more than 60 other Democrats in sending a letter to Mr. Biden last month urging him to use his clemency powers in his final months to address decades of disparities that led to mass incarceration of Black people and other vulnerable populations.
In an interview, Mr. Clyburn said Mr. Biden had the opportunity to rectify the injustice of decades of harsh sentences that have disproportionately affected Black people.
“You got people in Colorado getting wealthy now because we changed the name from marijuana to cannabis, and now it’s fine to grow cannabis, but you go to jail and get a record that you’re saddled with if it were marijuana,” Mr. Clyburn said.
As a senator, Mr. Biden championed a 1994 crime bill that many experts say fueled mass incarceration. He has since expressed regret for his support of the legislation, and he committed during the 2020 campaign to addressing the long drug sentences that resulted.
Mr. Clyburn, who recommended that the president pardon his son and issue blanket pardons to protect against political retribution by Mr. Trump, said he wanted Mr. Biden to show similar empathy for those serving time in prison.
“I wouldn’t ask him to do for my constituents something that should not also apply to his own son,” Mr. Clyburn said. “That’s what I told him.”
He added: “Do what you learned in those Catholic schools you grew up in. I’m asking Joe Biden to show some compassion.”
Other Democrats say Mr. Biden should focus on those serving long drug sentences after legislation stalled in Congress that would have eliminated the current 18-to-1 disparity in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder.
Mr. Biden so far has been relatively reserved in his ability to pardon federal crimes or reduce sentences through what is known as a commutation.
The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the Justice Department, has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Mr. Biden’s term. The president has so far issued 161 clemency grants — 26 pardons and 135 commutations — according to a tally kept by the pardon attorney.
That is fewer than the 238 — 144 pardons and 94 commutations — that Mr. Trump issued during his first administration.
Mr. Biden has also issued what is known as blanket pardons to wipe clean the records of those convicted of marijuana possession. None of those people were in prison when Mr. Biden made that announcement in 2022. He has also pardoned military veterans who had been convicted of having gay sex, a crime under military law until 2013.
Mr. Biden did issue a moratorium on executions when he came into office. But his Justice Department has continued to prosecute death penalty cases, and Mr. Trump had indicated he would continue executions once he returned to the White House.
Sweeping clemency for inmates on death row could anger those who feel that capital punishment is warranted for convictions after heinous crimes, such as the killings of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., or 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Mr. Biden’s aides have also hosted private meetings to hear out those calling for relief for those on death row.
Democrats and activists are also pushing Mr. Biden to use the power for other groups of inmates, such as older people and those who are chronically ill, and women who were punished for defending themselves against their abusers. Activists are also hoping for clemency for the thousands of federal inmates who were moved to home confinement during the Covid emergency. Some congressional Republicans, who are set to take control of Congress next month, have tried to push legislation that would have forced those people to return to prison.
In the final days of Mr. Trump’s first term, the Justice Department tried to send those inmates back to prisons when the emergency ended, prompting Democratic lawmakers and activists to plead with Mr. Biden to keep them home. The Biden administration initially agreed with Mr. Trump’s decision, before reversing course months later.
Last year, the White House announced that Mr. Biden would veto any legislation to send them back, saying that they were nonviolent offenders, fewer than 1 percent of whom had reoffended since their release.
David McMaster, 60, was convicted of financial crimes related to the Wall Street mortgage crisis and was among those released to home confinement during the pandemic. Since his release in January 2021, he has become a vice president at a beverage manufacturer, as well as an ordained pastor.
David McMaster is among those who were released to home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic but could be returned to prison. “I’m preparing for the worst,” he said. Credit...Caitlin O'Hara for The New York Times
For the past four years, he has also lived under the threat that at any moment, he could have to leave his family, church and company. He makes sure his wife has the passwords to all of his accounts so that she can pay the bills, and he keeps a list of contacts that can be sent to him if he returns to prison to let people know. Mr. McMaster submitted his clemency request to the White House in October, but he remains wary.
“There’s always been a fear that we all just get swept up, and since the election, that concern has ratcheted up greatly,” he said. “I’m preparing for the worst.”
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