Death row inmates make shock decision after Biden granted clemency

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : 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.'
46% : Trump, who takes office on January 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executionsWhile running for president in 2020, Biden's campaign website said he would 'work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government´s example.'Similar language didn't appear on Biden's reelection website before he left the presidential race in July.
44% : During his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.
42% : These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.'Those not spared include Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh´s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.
41% : 'Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole.
40% : Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, who both reside on death row at a federal prison in Indiana, filed emergency injunctions on December 30 to block the commutations.
40% : Speculation that Biden could commute federal death sentences intensified last week after the White House announced he plans to visit Italy on the final foreign trip of his presidency next month.
39% : Davis, who is asking the court to supply himself and Agofsky with a co-counsel to deal with both of their cases, said he 'has always maintained his innocence and argued that federal court had no jurisdiction to try him for civil rights offenses.'Just before Christmas, Biden announced that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.
38% : Now, convicted murderers, bank robbers, kidnappers and rapists will escape federal execution.
36% : Shannon Agofsky (pictured left) and Len Davis (pictured right), who both reside on death row at a federal prison in Indiana , filed emergency injunctions on December 30 to block the commutationsTheir attorneys argue that, as Agofsky and Davis still maintain their innocence, that Biden's decision makes it less likely that the courts will hear an appeal their casesHowever, Agofsky's wife Laura says that her husband 'doesn't want to die in prison being labeled a cold-blooded killer' and added that this is 'not a win for him.'Laura Agofsky, a German citizen, married her husband over the phone in 2019 and has become an advocate for him on the outside.
29% : In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those 'caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.'
25% : But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.
19% : He took a political jab at Trump, saying, 'In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.'Trump, who takes office on January 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executions.
18% : The final three occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office the following January, the first time federal prisoners were put to death by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.
2% : Trump, who takes office on January 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executionsThe Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during Biden's termBiden faced recent pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates.

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