Child murderers on death row could be granted clemency by Biden: report

The list of condemned individuals includes several notorious criminals. Among them are five who murdered children, nine who killed fellow inmates, and one who used a hammer to kill a prison guard while serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of his wife, a US Marine, the New York Post reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Merrick Garland recommended that Biden comment the sentences to life imprisonment for all but a few of the 40 cases. It was not reported which prisoners Garland urged Biden not to spare.

The Post speculated that these could include Robert Bowers, who shot 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, and Dylann Roof, who slaughtered nine black parishioners in a 2015 shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is also on federal death row.

Advisories from the attorney general often provide a framework for presidents to make contentious decisions, and the White House has informed the Wall Street Journal that no final decision has been reached on the matter.

Uncertainty surrounds how potential clemency might affect ongoing cases, including federal prosecutors’ push for a death sentence in the upcoming trial of Payton Gendron. Gendron is accused of killing 10 people in a racially motivated 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo, NY, grocery store.

Earlier this month, Biden pardoned a large number of criminals, including his son Hunter Biden. The younger Biden was convicted in June of three federal gun felonies and pleaded guilty in September to $1.4 million in tax fraud. Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people on December 12, all of whom had been temporarily released from prison during Covid-19.