President Biden just commuted 37 of 40 death row sentences. This means their sentences are reclassified. Instead of being sentenced to death, their new sentences are life without the possibility of parole. I don’t think you need me to tell you how great that is. Biden saved 37 lives, all of whom were previously told their actions had denied their right to life. Biden’s action shows that our justice system no longer believes that, that perhaps nothing they did denied what made them human.
But did it? Let’s take a closer look.
First, notice that Biden pardoned only 37 of 40. There were, apparently, three on death row who didn’t deserve this pardon. Those three are Robert Bowers, who was responsible for the antisemetic murder of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine black members of the Mother Emanuel AME Church in 2015, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the living brother involved in the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
All three remaining on death row are all responsible for grand acts of racial hate or terrorism. I don’t really care whether is was just Biden, who has put forth an inconsistent view on the death penalty through the years, or his administration, who decided to not commute every sentence, but it confuses me. I understand that these three men have committed some horrific crimes, but if everyone else wasn’t deserving of the death penalty, why not these three? Is there actually a certain threshold for someone to act so wrongfully that they do forfeit their right to life?
Second, consider the life ahead for those 37: life sentences without the possibility of parole. That’s the only life I can think of that is more hopeless than death row. It’s a step forward from the death penalty, but I want people to consider how much those sentences recognize humanity.
I don’t want to be fully negative, but I do want to identify the shortcomings of this obviously-positive outcome. God is good, and 37 lives are saved. See you next week.
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