December 9, 2024 

President Joseph Biden 
The White House 
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20500 

Dear President Biden, 

On behalf of the 128 undersigned civil liberties, civil and human rights, faith-based, academic, and social justice organizations, we write to urge you to use your constitutionally provided power to commute the sentences of all individuals on federal death row. We commend your administration’s actions to repudiate capital punishment, including imposing a moratorium on executions for those sentenced to death, and for publicly calling for an end to the use of the death penalty during your 2020 campaign.¹ In the face of a second Trump administration, more is necessary. 

Forty people are currently on federal death row. Over half of those individuals are non-white, including 38% who are Black, despite Black adults representing 11.7% of the population.² The federal death penalty is not immune from the hallmark irreparable failures of the death penalty at the state level.³ Indeed, the nation bore witness to thirteen executions in the final seven months of the first Trump administration, all of which were marred with devastating issues endemic to capital punishment like racial bias, ineffective legal assistance, unreliable forensic evidence, and defendants executed who had substantial intellectual disabilities and severe mental health conditions.⁴ 

From the first day of your presidency, you issued a clear commitment to address racial equity for underserved communities.⁵ As your time in office comes to a close, there is an unprecedented need for you to cement your commitment to remedying injustices by exercising executive clemency and commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row. President Trump executed more people than the previous ten administrations combined.⁶ Of those he executed, over half were people of color: six Black men and one Native American. The only irreversible action you can take to prevent President-elect Trump from renewing his execution spree, as he has vowed to do, is commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row now. Your ability to change the course of the death penalty in the United States will be a defining, legacy-building moment in American history. You have the power to lead with redemption and time is of the essence. 

Historically, in the United States, the death penalty has been rooted in slavery, lynchings, and white vigilantism.⁷ In 1944, South Carolina executed a 14-year old Black child, George Stinney for the rape and murder of two white young girls who never returned home on a day he had seen them.⁸ Mr. Stinney’s attorney had no experience in capital cases and did not call any witnesses.⁹ He was convicted by an all-white jury.¹⁰ In 2014, 80 years later, a judge vacated Mr. Stinney’s capital conviction as he was deprived of due process during his trial.¹¹ While George Stinney is the youngest person known to be executed by a government in U.S. history, this heart-wrenching case bears emblematic commonalities of how the death penalty has been used as a tool of racial oppression against Black men and Black communities. 

Today, people of color, particularly Black men, continue to disproportionately face the death penalty. Studies reveal that racial discrimination permeates every stage of the criminal justice process— from policing and charging decisions to jury selection, trial proceedings, sentencing and ultimately who is executed.¹² A 2018 study found that the requirement that prospective jurors be willing to vote for a death sentence likely disproportionately excludes Black people from serving on juries in capital cases, depriving Black defendants of a jury of their peers.¹³ Study after study has identified that if a victim is white, there is an increased likelihood a defendant will be sentenced to death. A 2022 study that reviewed murder cases from Georgia observed that when a Black defendant is accused of killing white victims, cases are 25% more likely to receive a death sentence than all other race combinations.¹⁴ A 1990 review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that Black defendants face harsher penalties than their similarly situated non-Black counterparts, and defendants whose victims are white are treated more punitively than those whose victims are Black.¹⁵ More than a third of the people who have been executed since 1976 are Black.¹⁶ The United Nations Human Rights Committee has repeatedly expressed concerns about the use of the death penalty in the United States and the racial justice implications, recently stating “the Committee remains gravely concerned at the continuing use of the death penalty and at racial disparities in its imposition.”¹⁷

There are Black men on federal death row today who were sentenced and convicted by all-white juries, despite the offense taking place in areas with significant populations of people of color.¹⁸ Since 1989, 60% of all people federally sentenced to death have been people of color.¹⁹ In short, so long as the United States maintains the death penalty, this country will never achieve true racial equity. The continued use of the death penalty in the United States represents an indelible stain on the moral fabric of our country and a barrier to achieving racial justice. While the majority of countries have abolished capital punishment, those that retain it wield it disproportionately against racially, religiously, and politically marginalized groups.²⁰ The U.S. is no exception.

Further, the death penalty does not advance public safety. Arguments that the death penalty is a necessary deterrent ring false. In 2020, states with the death penalty had higher murder rates than those without – states with the death penalty had an average murder rate of 7.5 per 100,000, whereas states without the death penalty had murder rates of 5.3 per 100,000.²¹ Law enforcement officials agree. In a national opinion poll of police chiefs across the United States, the use of the death penalty ranked last as an effective way to keep communities safe.²²

We have seen time and time again cases where state and federal governments have made grave–and even fatal–mistakes with wrongful convictions. Since 1973, at least 200 people have been exonerated from death rows across the United States.²³ The vast majority of those who were wrongfully convicted to die, often spending decades on death row, are Black and Brown people. ²⁴ This disturbing realization about the fallibility of the capital punishment system and who it targets begs further questions about those who were innocent and executed and lost history through grave injustices that we cannot reverse.²⁵

President Biden, by commuting the sentences of those on death row, you have the opportunity to bring the United States closer in line with the nearly two-thirds of countries that have fully abolished the use of capital punishment. Now is the moment for us all to reflect on what a higher sense of morality and duty call upon us to do. We urge you to commute the sentences of those on death row prior to the end of your term.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Tara Stutsman of the American Civil Liberties Union attstustman@aclu.org, Aiden Cotter of the Southern Poverty Law Center ataiden.cotter@splcenter.org, Justin Mazzola of Amnesty International USA atjmazzola@aiusa.org, or Kristina Roth of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund atkroth@naacpldf.org. 

Sincerely,

American Civil Liberties Union

Amnesty International USA

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)

Southern Poverty Law Center

8^thAmendment Project

A Bella LaFemme Society

ACT 4 SA Action Fund

Alabama Arise

Alaskans Against a Death Penalty

American Constitution Society 

American Friends Service Committee 

American Humanist Association 

Atlanta Community Support Project 

Autistic Self Advocacy Network 

Barred Business 

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action 

Brennan Center for Justice 

California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty 

California Public Defenders Association 

Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) 

Center for American Progress 

Center for Constitutional Rights 

Center for Law, Equity and Race at Northeastern 

Center on Law, Race & Policy at Duke Law 

Color Of Change 

Common Cause 

Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice 

Conservatives Concerned 

Courage California 

Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona 

Death Penalty Focus 

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund 

Dream.org 

Drug Policy Alliance 

EJUSA Evangelical Network 

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights 

Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta 

Episcopal Peace Fellowship 

Equal Justice USA 

Equity in Education 

Fair and Just Prosecution 

Fair Chance Project ~ Families United to End LWOP (FUEL) 

Federal Public and Community Defenders 

Felony Murder Elimination Project 

Florida Rising 

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 

Forward Justice 

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, UC Irvine School of Law 

Friends Committee on Legislation of California 

Full Picture Justice 

Fund for Nonviolence 

FWD.us 

Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda 

Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law 

Human Rights Watch 

Ignite Peace 

Jewish Council for Public Affairs 

JLUSA 

Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing 

Justice Roundtable 

Juvenile Law Center 

Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty 

Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty 

Lambda Legal 

LatinoJustice PRLDEF 

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law 

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area 

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 

Lewis & Clark Law School 

Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent 

MacArthur Justice Center 

MomsRising.org 

Motherhood Beyond Bars 

Movement for Black Lives 

Multifaith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration 

Muslim Advocates 

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers 

National Association of Social Workers 

National Bar Association 

National Black Justice Collective 

National Council of Churches 

National Lawyers Guild 

National Religious Campaign Against Torture 

National Urban League 

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice 

Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty 

New Disabled South 

Next Generation Action Network 

NYU Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law 

Ohio Council of Churches 

Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change (OFUPAC) 

Ohioans to Stop Executions 

Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty 

Oklahoma Faith Network 

Onyx Impact 

Operation Restoration 

Oregon Justice Resource Center 

Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 

Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 

Presenting Resources Effectively Applying Christlike Humbleness (PREACH) 

Prison Policy Initiative 

Promise of Justice Initiative 

Prosecutors Alliance Action 

Restoring Hope California 

Safe & Just Michigan 

Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, PA 

South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 

Southern Center for Human Rights 

State Voices Florida 

Survived & Punished 

Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP) 

Texas After Violence Project 

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) 

Texas Defender Service 

Texas Jail Project 

The Advocates for Human Rights 

The Faith Leaders of Color Coalition (FLOCC) 

The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls 

The Sentencing Project 

Together We Stand 

Union for Reform Judaism 

USF School of Law Racial Justice Clinic 

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) 

Vera Institute of Justice 

Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law 

Witness To Innocence 

Worth Rises 

Young Women’s Freedom Center 

---

 ¹ Dakin Andone, Biden campaigned on abolishing the death penalty. But 2 years in advocates see an inconsistent message, CNN, (Jan. 22, 2023) https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/22/politics/joe-biden-federal-death-penalty-abolition/index.html. 

² A person must be at least 18 years old to be sentenced to death. Angelica Menchaca, Bev Pratt, Eric Jensen & Nicholas Jones, Examining the Racial and Ethnic Diversity of Adults and Children, U.S. Census Bureau (May 22, 2023), https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2023/05/racial-ethnic-diversity-adults-children.html. 

³ As of July 1, 2024, 58% of people on death row throughout the country are non-white and 41% of those individuals are Black. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Death Row USA, https://www.naacpldf.org/our-thinking/death-row-usa/ (last visited Nov. 27, 2024). 

⁴ The Trump Administration pursued these executions despite widespread, bipartisan opposition and COVID-related lockdowns. Those executed included the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years; the youngest person based on the age when the crime occurred (18 at the time of his arrest); and the only Native American on federal death row. Erik Ortiz, Trump Wants to Expand Federal Death Penalty, Setting Up Legal Challenges if He Secures a Second Term, NBC News (Nov. 9, 2024), https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-wants-expand-federal-death-penalty-setting-legal-challenges-seco-rcna178979.  

⁵ Exec. Order No. 13,985, 87 Fed. Reg. 7009 (Jan. 20, 2021), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government/. 

⁶ Isaac Arnsdorf, Inside Trump and Barr’s Last-Minute Killing Spree, ProPublica, (Dec. 23, 2020) https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-trump-and-barrs-last-minute-killing-spree. 

⁷ Ngozi Ndule, Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center, (Sept. 2020), https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/pdf/Enduring-Injustice-Race-and-the-Death-Penalty-2020.pdf?dm=1683576585. 

⁸ Hayley Bedard, Remembering the Execution of 14-year-old Goerge Stinney, 80 years later, Death Penalty Information Center, (June 14, 2024) https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/remembering-the-execution-of-14-year-old-george-stinney-80-years-later. 

⁹ Id. 

¹⁰ Id. 

¹¹ Id. 

¹² Jeffrey A. Fagan, Garth Davies & Ray Paternoster, Getting to Death: Race and the Paths of Capital Cases after Furman, 107 CORNELL L. REV. 1565 (2022) https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3891. 

¹³ Death Penalty Information Center, Studies: Death-Penalty Jury Section “Whitewashes” Juries and is Biased Towards Death (May 1, 2018), https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/studies-death-penalty-jury-selection-whitewashes-juries-and-is-biased-towards-death.  

¹⁴ Jeffrey A. Fagan, Garth Davies & Ray Paternoster, Getting to Death: Race and the Paths of Capital Cases after Furman, 107 CORNELL L. REV. 1565 (2022) https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3891. 

¹⁵ Id. 

¹⁶ Death Penalty Information Center, Executions by Race and Race of Victim, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/executions-by-race-and-race-of-victim (last visited Nov. 27, 2024). 

¹⁷ U.N. Human Rights Comm., Concluding Observations on the Fifth Periodic Report of the United States of America, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/USA/CO/5 (Apr. 18, 2014), https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/concluding-observations/ccprcusaco5-concluding-observations-fifth-periodic-report-united. 

¹⁸ John Nidiry & Ruth Friedman, Long Overdue: The Need for an Examination of the Specter of Racial Bias in the Federal Death Penalty System, 67 Univ. of Maine L. (2024). Available at: https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=faculty-publications. 

¹⁹ The Death Penalty Information Center, Fool’s Gold: How the Federal Death Penalty Has Perpetrated Racially Discriminatory Practices Throughout History, (Nov. 14, 2024) https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-special-reports/fools-gold-federal-racial-justice-report. 

²⁰ Amnesty International, Death Sentences and Executions in 2023, (May 29, 2024), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act50/7952/2024/en/#:~:text=Amnesty%20International’s%20monitoring%20of%20the,31%25%20from%20883%20in%202022. 

²¹ Death Penalty Information Center, Murder Rate of Death Penalty States Compared to Non-Death Penalty States, 2020, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/murder-rates/murder-rate-of-death-penalty-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states (last visited Nov. 27, 2024).  

²²American Civil Liberties Union,The Case Against the Death Penalty, (Dec.11, 2012)  https://www.aclu.org/documents/case-against-death-penalty.

²³Death Penalty Information Center,Innocence, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence(last visitedOct.30, 2024).

²⁴Innocence Project,Innocence and the Death Penalty,
https://innocenceproject.org/innocence-and-the-death-penalty/#:~:text=The%20vast%20majority%20of%20people,administration%20of%20the%20death%20penalty (last visited Oct. 30, 2024).

²⁵Death Penalty Information Center, Executed But Possibly Innocent, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/executed-but-possibly-innocent (last visited Nov. 11, 2024).