After facing pressure from religious organizations, civil rights advocacy groups and even the pope, Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of nearly all inmates on federal death row. And I say nearly all because there were a few notable exceptions, [00:00:16] and we'll get into those momentarily. But first, today I'm commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed [00:00:34] on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate motivated mass murder. Make no mistake, I condemn these murders. Murderers grieve for the families of their despicable acts and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss. [00:00:53] Biden also added Trump returning to office to the Or to office for his second term was a motivating factor in his decision, he says. 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 [00:01:12] that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted. Now, before Trump took office in 2016, the last federal execution was in 2003. [00:01:27] The Trump administration oversaw 13 executions. Upon taking office in 2021, the Biden administration issued a moratorium on federal executions. Anti-Death penalty activists have been pressuring Biden to take action and commute these sentences before his time in office runs out. [00:01:46] Earlier this month, Pope Francis even spoke out. Today, I feel compelled to ask all of you to pray for the inmates on death row in the United States. Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours, and ask the Lord [00:02:02] for grace to save them from death. But who didn't have their sentences commuted? The three men on death row whose sentences are not being commuted are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose conviction related to his role in the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three. [00:02:19] Dylann roof, who killed nine in the South Carolina Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting. And Robert Bowers, who killed 11 in the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Now, while Biden's move was substantial for the federal death row, [00:02:37] over 2000 people remain on death row on state charges throughout the country. Now, some people might see this as controversial. Some people might celebrate this. Where do you where do you fall on this issue? So I used to be in favor of the death penalty. This is one of the few things that I've changed my mind on over the years [00:02:55] that we've been doing The Young Turks at a huge hour long debate with Mario Cuomo about it and, and so on. This I don't have a lot of compassion for the people that are on death row. And so that's not why I have the position that I do. [00:03:11] The reason I switched my position to being against the death penalty is because the Innocence Project proved that we were killing innocent people. So it's one thing to say, hey, let's kill guilty people. And maybe I'm a bad guy for saying that, right? For. But look, I want justice for their families. [00:03:28] And all these guys did terrible, terrible things. Okay, but I don't want injustice of killing an innocent person. That's the worst possible thing you could do. And it's not a small number, guys. Dozens of people were let go off of death row because it turns out [00:03:44] we had the wrong people. Okay, so that's why I would commute all their sentences, including the the three notorious killers. So you Biden can't say, hey, I'm a good Catholic. The pope told me to get rid of the death sentence. But those other three guys are super bad guys, so no or but that. [00:04:01] But the three. The politics of those three guys is not wait, are you doing it because of your conscience? Because the pope told you to? Or are you not doing it because the Pope is not unclear? The Catholic Church is not unclear. They don't ask, hey, what did they do? So of course you know me. Second of all, I don't give a damn. I mean, Pope's a relatively good guy, but I don't care what the Pope thinks. [00:04:19] Why do I care? Why are we even having that discussion? That has nothing to should have nothing to do with the US government's policy on it. So I would have commuted all their sentences, even though I hate them all. But unless one of them is innocent and that's why I would commute the sentences and remember, guys, they don't walk if they were going to walk, [00:04:36] it's a whole different situation. It's a life sentence. None of them are ever getting out of prison. And so, I mean, I can't hate anybody more than I hate Dylann Roof other than maybe the synagogue shooter and maybe the Boston Marathon bomber. Right. So they're all despicable people. That's not the question. [00:04:51] The question is, do we have a death penalty? Should we have a death penalty or shouldn't we? - And I don't think we should. - Yeah. No, I, I mean, I don't think even for the most heinous cases. So you're saying if they're, they're convicted, they for sure did it. - You're okay with it, but you're morally. - I'm totally fine with it. [00:05:08] Sure. But but as a as a policy, if you start using death row, in some cases you'll wind up using it in more cases and then you'll wind up making mistakes. - That's a guarantee. - Right. And then when it becomes a piece of someone's political platform, right. [00:05:23] In Texas, you see governors trying to one up the last one. That's extremely worrying. Now, I it is interesting that he didn't commute these sentences. It's not surprising that he didn't commute the sentences of Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Also, because you're going to see Trump or you would have seen Trump [00:05:42] try to rush through that list similar to those 13 that he did, were all around the last year of his term, and they continued up until the last week of his term. So they were trying to go through that, that list of inmates on death row as fast as they could. [00:05:57] So when you have that kind of a dynamic in a party and in a group of politicians, that's worrying because, like Jenks pointing out, some people could be innocent, but you have an alternative. They're still being punished for what they did. Life without parole is the second worst punishment you can get. [00:06:15] I think that's perfectly fine. And there's also something that weighs on me when I think about this as a form of punishment beyond the potential innocence, just the barbarism and violence and the cycle of violence that it continues to perpetuate. It just doesn't feel right for a group of people in some, in sometimes [00:06:34] politically charged cases or sentences to take someone's life as a result. And it ethically, morally, for some people, spiritually, at least for me, it doesn't it doesn't sit well with me. And I think that we have evolved as a society, as a group of humans, that we can [00:06:54] find alternatives to the death penalty. I think we have them. It's in front of us. It's right there in front of you. I wish we could get past it. Unfortunately, there are 2000 plus more people who are potentially awaiting their death. Yeah. [00:07:09] As usual, Democrats. Slight improvement. You know, throughout the years, Bill Clinton went back home to execute someone in the middle of his first presidential run, and that person actually had a significant mental impairment. But as for the purpose of politics, he wanted to show how tough he was. [00:07:26] So he went back home and executed that guy who could barely understand what was going on. So now Biden is a little bit better because he commuted almost all the federal ones. And so I guess that's a tiny bit of progress, but a tiny bit of progress could be the motto of the Democratic Party. [00:07:43] I mean, I don't want to undersell this was significant. I mean, this is all but three. And those three, you look at them, it's like, okay, I get why he wouldn't do those three. Politically. Yeah. I mean, 37 out of 40 on federal death row for what he was able to do on this specifically. [00:07:59] I think that's significant. I don't want to undersell that. This was, I think, the right move for him to do. I mean, I wish he would have done it earlier. But. I didn't really matter because they didn't die. So, like, they would have been in jail either way. So now I'm giving him a little bit of credit for that. [00:08:14] Sure, sure. And there were other like again, the it's heartbreaking. On the innocence thing. I worked on a case, about a year ago in Texas, Ivan Cantu, and he probably was innocent. All the evidence was pointing to him being innocent. [00:08:30] And he was charged in the 90s and despite public outcry, the advocates trying to reach through every possible avenue to reach Governor Abbott, he just didn't pay attention, didn't care, didn't do anything, and they executed him anyway. [00:08:46] Probably very likely an innocent man. And there are so many stories like that. Marcellus Williams recently, probably innocent. And it's just there's nothing you can do because people see it, like you're saying, Jake, as an opportunity to show their toughness as a governor or as a leader. [00:09:01] And that's just I think it's inhumane. Ironically, what's tough is commuting the sentence of a death penalty inmate knowing you're going to get a lot of flack for it. That's a much better show of strength than executing a guy who's mentally impaired. So I wish our politicians had the strength of and the courage [00:09:19] to do the right thing when it's unpopular, because that shows true strength. But overall, Biden largely did the right thing here. Credit where credit is due. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. [00:09:38] You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. 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