Pressley praises Biden's death row commutations, urges more action

Joe Dwinell, Boston Herald on Dec 24, 2024

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BOSTON — Boston Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley praised President Joe Biden’s move to take killers off death row but added he hasn’t gone far enough.

In a statement that has gone viral, Pressley said Biden has made a “groundbreaking act” that was long overdue.

“The death penalty is a racist, flawed, and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society,” Pressley said in a statement. For far too long, it has been disproportionately weaponized against Black and brown communities, exacerbated systemic inequities, and failed to make America any safer—which is why we’ve urged the president for years to work with us to abolish the federal death penalty.

“By taking this historic action,” she added, “President Biden is demonstrating the type of moral leadership this moment demands.”

Biden converted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment Monday without the possibility of parole in a move that is being ripped by some loved ones of victims this holiday week.

Pressley, a member of far-left Squad in Congress, called on Biden to “go farther, because he has the power,” according to a GBH News tweet Monday night.

Pressley doubled-down on her commutation clapping by posting a clip from CNN on her commets.

A retweet from U.S. Sen. John Kennedy on that CNN post states one of the men Biden kept from the death penalty was Marvin Gabrion, a white man who raped and killed a 19-year-old Michigan woman in 1997. The teen’s infant daughter has never been found.

“I think President Biden offered a Christmas gift to the perpetrators of murder, but he offered only pain to the victims, the families of the victims,” Tim Timmerman, the teen’s dad, told a local TV station Monday.

In her statement, Pressley added: “There is no action more powerful or righteous than sparing someone’s life, and today President Biden is doing just that. The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity.”

She ends with thanking Biden for “heeding our calls and leading with compassion, and I encourage him to continue using his clemency authority in the final days of his presidency.”

As the Herald is reporting, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was left off the list because Biden did not include terrorism cases.

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