Among those suspended by Biden are nine people convicted of murdering fellow inmates, four for murders committed during bank robberies and one who killed a prison guard.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, I grieve for the victims of their heinous acts, and I grieve for all the families who have suffered an unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden added.
Among those pardoned is disgraced former New Orleans police officer Len Davis, who ran a drug ring involving other officers and orchestrated the woman’s murder.
Three remain on death row, including Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jewish worshipers in the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, will also remain on death row.
Biden has spoken out as an opponent of the death penalty, and after he became president, the Department of Justice imposed a moratorium on its use at the federal level.
During his first term as president, Trump served 13 death by lethal injection during the last six months in power.
No federal inmates were executed in the US since 2003, until Trump reinstated federal executions in July 2020.
During his re-election campaign, Trump said he would expand the death penalty to include people and drug traffickers, as well as migrants who kill American citizens.
Biden appeared to refer to Trump’s intentions in his statement, saying he could not “in good conscience step aside and allow the new administration to reinstate the death penalty that I ended.”
Under US law, these pardon decisions cannot be overturned by a successor president.
The president’s statement was criticized by some Republicans.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said on X, formerly Twitter, that Democrats “are the party of politically convenient justice” after news of the replacements became public.
“Once again, Democrats are siding with depraved criminals over their victims, public order and common decency,” he said.
Biden’s decision won’t affect people on death row in state courts around the world around 2250, external prisoners, reports the Information Center on Death Penalty. During Biden’s presidency, more than 70 state executions were carried out.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states. Six other states, including Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, have moratoriums in place.
Earlier this month, Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned another 39 convicted of non-violent crimes.
He also pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted of two felonies. Earlier in September, he pleaded guilty to tax charges, and in June he was found guilty of illegal drug use and gun possession, becoming the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime.
The US Constitution decrees that the president has broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
