President Joe Biden exhibited profound "moral wisdom" in his decision to commute 37 out of 40 death row inmates to life without parole, Elizabeth Bruenig wrote for The Atlantic on Monday.
Biden issued these pardons to prevent another spree of executions like that which occurred under the first Trump administration — although, perhaps sensitive to the controversy over his last mass clemency including some particularly heinous criminals, took care not to commute the sentences of the Charleston church shooter, the Boston Marathon bomber, or the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter — and despite that, Republicans still pounced and threw a fit over the decision.
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"The political wisdom of Biden’s lame-duck pardons and commutation jubilee is unclear," wrote Bruenig. "It seems likely to me that Republicans will use the details of death-row prisoners’ crimes to tar Biden and the Democrats as vaguely approving of torture and murder. Biden himself seemed prepared for that eventuality in his statement, and the recriminations have already begun, despite the fact that life without parole is still a severe punishment: Fair enough; these prisoners’ crimes were to a person evil and left scores of families with holes in their lives. Nevertheless, the moral wisdom of Biden’s decision is compelling to me."
In this decision, Bruenig continued, Biden has "secured a place in history as a president of certain mercies, all of which speak of the restraint a sovereign owes his people."
And in practice, because the three terroristic mass murderers denied clemency will likely be bogged down in proceedings throughout the Trump administration, this decision will "effectively end the federal death penalty for a generation."
What this could do, she continued, is inspire similar clemencies at the state level, at least among Democratic governors in states that still allow capital punishment — and it could give time for a future Supreme Court to revisit the constitutionality of executions at a later date.
Even some of the acquaintances of these death row inmates' victims cheered the decision, Bruenig noted, as did former Ohio Department of Corrections director Gary Mohr.
"For these men, as well as scores of others both on the row and off, Biden has brought about a fraction of peace on Earth, a measure of mercy mild — and a welcome hallelujah," she concluded.
