Praise and outrage follow Biden’s decision to commute federal death row sentences

By Lauren Mascarenhas and Javon Huynh, CNN

(CNN) — President Joe Biden’s announcement that he’s taking 37 people off federal death row resulted in praise from some families and deep disappointment from others.

The 37 inmates impacted by the decision, whose crimes include murders tied to drug trafficking and the killings of prison guards or other inmates, will instead serve life sentences.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement.

“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. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

During Biden’s presidency, the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, halted federal executions while officials review their policies and protocol.

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he will restart federal executions and expand the reach of capital punishment under federal law when he takes office.

‘I felt just absolute gratitude’

Kelley Henry is an attorney for two people who had their death row sentences commuted Monday: Rejon Taylor, who was convicted in Tennessee in 2008 of carjacking, kidnapping and the murder of an Atlanta restaurant owner, and Ricky Fackrell, who was convicted in Texas in 2018 for killing a federal inmate. She said she felt an immense sense of appreciation when the news broke Monday morning.

“I found out when the rest of the world found out,” Henry said. “My co-counsel called me at 4:03 a.m. this morning, and I felt just absolute gratitude.”

She connected with the families of both clients this morning, she said, and tears of relief were shed.

Under their federal death row sentences, neither client has been allowed to have contact visits, and they are in a remote prison far from their families – meaning they’ve had minimal contact with their relatives over the years, Henry said. The legal team expects the Bureau of Prisons to reclassify their clients and hopes they are placed closer to their families.

“We hope that brings them a connection with their families,” Henry said. “Hopefully, they’ll have an opportunity to get into general population (an inmate group with fewer restrictions) and participate in programs and have a life.”

There’s a multi-layered process to request commutation of a sentence that requires recommendations be made by a pardon attorney, a deputy attorney general, Attorney General Merrick Garland and White House legal counsel before it reaches the president, Henry said.

“It’s not as if Biden woke up this morning and just decided to do it,” she said. “There’s been a long process and a lot of vetting for him to make this decision.”

Henry said she’s familiar with the process because she also represented Lisa Montgomery, the first woman to be executed by the federal government since 1953. She was executed in January 2021, after a request for then-President Trump to read her clemency petition was unsuccessful.

“It’s bittersweet today, because if Lisa had lived eight more days, she would have been part of this group of commutations,” Henry said.

Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2008 by a Missouri jury for the 2004 murder of a pregnant woman, cutting the fetus out and kidnapping it. Her defense team argued she should have been given a competency hearing to prove her severe mental illness, which would have made her ineligible for the death penalty, CNN previously reported.

Bident’s decision could impact not just those whose death sentences were commuted, but the criminal justice system at large, civil rights groups say.

“President Biden took a historic and courageous step in addressing the failed death penalty in the United States – bringing us much closer to outlawing the barbaric practice once again,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Opponents express outrage

While families, defense attorneys and supporters of those who had their sentences commuted Monday rejoiced, some of their victims’ friends and relatives expressed outrage.

The Fraternal Order of Police Capital City #9, an organization of law enforcement officers in Franklin County, Ohio, condemned Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of Daryl Lawrence, who was convicted of killing Officer Bryan Hurst in 2005.

“Bryan made the ultimate sacrifice, and this decision undermines the justice that was rightfully served for his murder,” the group said in a statement.

“The murder of Officer Hurst was not only an attack on one officer but an assault on the principles of law and order that protect our communities. The commutation of Lawrence’s sentence disregards the gravity of his crime and diminishes accountability for those who target the brave men and women who serve in uniform,” the statement continued.

Hurst’s widow, Marissa Gibson, said she and her daughter are disappointed by Biden’s decision in a statement provided to CNN affiliate WBNS.

Lawrence “made a decision to choose violence. He knew the potential consequences and chose to murder regardless,” Gibson said in her statement. “All I can hope is that his nearly 20 years in prison has made him a changed man.”

3 men remain on federal death row

Not all prisoners awaiting execution had their sentences commuted Monday. Three federal prisoners will still be on death row when Trump takes office in January: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; Dylann Roof, convicted of killing nine people at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.

Howard Fienberg, whose mother was killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue, told CNN’s MJ Lee before Biden’s decision that commuting Bowers’ sentence would be an affront to the US justice system.

“Aside from us and the honor of our families, my mom, it’s also about … the jurors that had to endure three months of this and still able to do what their civic responsibility – probably the heaviest responsibility that some people may ever have. And it’s about the law enforcement officers that were throwing themselves into harm’s way to try to save my mother and to save other people in the synagogue,” Fienberg said.

Following Biden’s decision to not commute Bowers’ death sentence, some of the Tree of Life shooting victims’ relatives expressed relief, Lee said.

With Biden’s historic decision to commute 37 death sentences in the books, criminal justice experts will be watching closely for the Trump administration’s approach to federal death row policy when he takes office next month.

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CNN’s Sam Fossum, MJ Lee, Samantha Waldenberg and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.