Joe Biden is pushing to prevent the wave of executions on death row under Trump

President Joe Biden has been urged to take action to prevent a wave of federal executions after President-elect Donald Trump took office in January.

In the final six months of Trump's first term, thirteen inmates were put to death in an unprecedented series of federal executions.

These executions took place even though experts said mental health and other problems should have prevented many of them. The Trump administration spent millions to ensure they were carried out during the coronavirus pandemic.

After Trump won a second term on Wednesday, Rev. Sharon Risher sent Biden a letter urging him to take action, including by commuting the sentences of all federal death row inmates, to prevent Trump a second series of executions begins.

“We write to you today with renewed concern and urgency,” Risher wrote in the letter Newsweek checked. “President-elect Donald Trump’s stated plan is to execute all remaining prisoners on federal death row. It is important that you deny him this opportunity by commuting every remaining death sentence on federal and military death rows.”

The letter was signed by a coalition of around 350 organizations, including Amnesty International USA, Death Penalty Action, Equal Justice USA, Faithful America, Human Rights Watch and The Innocence Project.

Biden has not kept his promise to abolish the federal death penalty, but his Justice Department has announced a moratorium on federal executions in 2021.

That moratorium could be lifted quickly when Trump returns to the White House in January, but Risher's letter says it is “not too late to act decisively.”

“We are grateful that there have been no further executions of federal prisoners under your administration,” she wrote. “As you know, this abhorrent and outdated punishment raises grave concerns, including the arbitrariness of its application, its inherent racial bias, and the alarming rate of innocence among those sentenced to death.”

The letter called on Biden to make federal executions “impossible” during Trump's second term by immediately commuting the sentences of those on federal and military death row; Withdrawal of pending federal capital proceedings; repeal of lethal injection protocol; and directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to demolish the federal execution chamber at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The White House was contacted via email seeking comment. A Trump spokesman was also emailed for comment.

Risher, the chairwoman of Death Penalty Action, said she wants Biden to know that commuting the sentences of people on federal death row will help the families of murder victims.

Her mother, cousins ​​and a friend were among those shot by white supremacist Dylann Roof in the 2015 South Carolina church shooting.

“It’s almost a decade later and I’m very clear about why I oppose executions,” Risher said Newsweek.

“Killing Dylann Roof would not help me in my recovery, and in fact just the experience of seeing his name on the news brings back the full horror of his violence and reminds us of the pain of that terrible day. Because he is dying.” In this series he can continue the terror he wanted to create because the focus is on him. If they execute him, he'll get the spotlight and another chance to spew his hatred, and I say no.

Her message to Biden, she said, is to “commute all of these sentences to death by incarceration rather than execution, and you will send these murderers into oblivion.” This will really help us heal.”

She added: “I want Joe Biden to know that I will stand with him when he signs these commutations, and I will explain to the world that what he is doing is helping the families of the victims far more than it is helping them Murderers.”

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said Newsweek that while many death penalty opponents have criticized Biden on the issue, “the truth is that he did the most pragmatic thing right after he took office.”

He said: “The president appointed an attorney general who understood the government's position and knew that he should not impose death sentences. Anything else would not have damaged his relations with Congress, but that is over now.”

Biden now has the chance to “take away one of the things that Donald Trump loves, which is the power to execute people,” he added.

“If Biden commutes all of these death sentences, Donald Trump will never be able to oversee a judicial execution again. It would be a great legacy for Biden to live up to his own moral code and save dozens of lives while leaving a painful parting gift for Trump.”