(RNS) — A group of faith leaders, activists, law enforcement officials and families of murder victims has called on President Joe Biden to spare the lives of about 40 inmates currently on death row in federal prisons.
The campaign is prompted by concerns the Department of Justice will lift a moratorium imposed by the Biden administration in 2021 and begin to execute prisoners after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Thirteen federal prisoners were executed during the first Trump administration — more than four times as many as under all the presidents combined since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988.
Among those asking Biden to commute the sentences of death row inmates is the Rev. Sharon Risher, whose mother, Ethel Lance, was one of nine church members killed in the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Risher cited Trump’s promise to restart executions in urging Biden to act.
“It is vital that you deny him that opportunity by commuting every death sentence remaining on federal and military death rows,” wrote Risher, chair of Death Penalty Action, in a letter to Biden this week.
The letter, signed by more than 400 religious and anti-death penalty groups, also urges Biden to order the Federal Bureau of Prisons to demolish the execution chamber at a federal prison in Indiana where many federal death row inmates are held and to bar federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in current cases.
The Rev. Sharon Risher speaks against the death penalty. (Photo courtesy of DeathPenaltyAction.org)
“Ending the federal and military death penalty is not only an important step toward correcting myriad flaws in the criminal legal system in the United States, it is both good governance and a moral imperative,” the letter reads. “We will continue to work toward that goal.”
Risher and Lisa Brown, whose son Christopher Vialva was executed in 2020, also ap …