In 2020, President Joe Biden ran against the death penalty. Today, it is urgent that he fulfill that promise.
While the Biden administration imposed a moratorium on executions in 2021, President-elect Donald Trump will almost certainly rescind it. During his last year in office, the Trump administration executed 13 people—more than any administration in 120 years. Trump has also promised to execute everyone on federal death row and expand capital punishment.
President Biden is just weeks away from leaving office. AFSC and other faith-based groups are urging his administration to commute the death sentences of all those on federal death row. We’re also calling for changes to policies that made it easier for the Trump administration that made it easier to carry out federal executions.
Here’s what you need to know.
1. Death penalty sentences are rife with racial discrimination and sentencing disparities between white people and people of color.
The criminal legal system is rooted in white supremacy. As with anything that is a consequence of an individual’s interaction with this system, race plays a major role in determining who receives the death penalty and who does not. In short, those who kill white people are more likely to get a death sentence than those who kill people of color. And of those who are convicted of murder, people of color are more likely to get death sentences than white people.
In a 2020 report, the Death Penalty Information Center noted that there were 56 people on federal death row at the time. Twenty-six—or nearly 50%—were Black (although Black people make up only about 13% of the U.S. population). Twenty of those 56 individuals (nearly 40%) were white, seven (around 12%) were Latino, and one individual was Asian. The report also found that some of these individuals were convicted by all-white juries.
In the three districts (Virginia, Texas, and eastern Missouri) that accounted for the bulk of the federal death sentences at the time, most of the people on death row were people of color.
The death penalty is arbitrarily sought by prosecutors who are often white themselves. They have the sole discretion to seek the death sentence for an accused individual.
2. Individuals have been wrongfully sentenced to death.
Since the 1970s, at least 160 individuals who were initially sentenced to death were exonerated. That is, they were found to be innocent and released. Others have been executed despite compelling evidence that they may have been wrongfully convicted.
Death penalty sentences are not exempt from the grave mistakes that plague our criminal legal system. Wrongful convictions occur for a multitude of reasons, including racial bias, false and/or coerced confessions, police or prosecutorial misconduct, and faulty forensic evidence. The release of people on death row over the decades—based on evidence that they did not commit the acts for which they were sentenced—is yet another example of the deep and deadly flaws in the criminal legal system.
3. Death sentences and executions do nothing to protect public safety.
For years, criminologists have studied whether the death penalty deters crime. Their research has demonstrated that we need to look elsewhere to reduce the level of homicide.
As a society, we cannot continue to allow state-sanctioned murder. We must stop responding to harms committed with punishment and retribution—and instead, center restorative justice and healing. That means focusing on the needs of victims of violence and their loved ones as they rebuild their lives. It also means fostering reparations and reconciliatory processes within the community at large.
People of conscience know that the death penalty flies in the face of moral values, common sense, and history.
The recent execution of Marcellus Williams in Missouri is a stark reminder that the state will kill someone on death row despite a lack of evidence, the prosecutor admitting racial bias during the trial, and the victim’s family opposing the execution.
Join us in urging the Biden administration to value the lives, rights, and dignity of all people today. Urge him to commute the sentences of those on death row and take steps to limit the use of the federal death penalty.