Biden commutes the sentences of nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders
President Biden on Friday announced he would commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses as one of his last major moves just days before leaving office.
Biden said the individuals receiving commutations are “serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice” in a Friday statement.
“Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes,” Biden said.
The move makes him the president who has issued more pardons and commutations than any other U.S. president, Biden said.
The president noted that Congress in recent years has passed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, which ended the five-year mandatory minimum sentencing for possessing crack cocaine, and the First Step Act in 2018, which aimed to decrease the federal prison population.
“As Congress recognized through the Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act, it is time that we equalize these sentencing disparities,” Biden said. “This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”
He said he is proud of his record on clemency and will “continue to review additional commutations and pardons” before he leaves office on Monday.
The president has been under pressure to pardon more people after he granted a pardon for his son Hunter Biden.
Last month, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, excluding only three federal death row inmates. The prisoners given commuted sentences saw their sentences classified from execution to life without the possibility of parole.
Those who can still face execution were Robert D. Bowers, the gunman at the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Dylann Roof, who opened fire in 2015 on Black parishioners at a Charleston, S.C., church, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers who carried out the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon.
Those commutations received a chorus of supporters, especially criminal justice groups that advocate against the death penalty and the Catholic Church, and critics, including Republican lawmakers. Biden in part made the move because he thinks a Trump administration would resume executions that were paused under his watch.