Democrats have called for President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of 40 people on death row.
“Today, on human rights day, we call on President Biden to do the right thing — to use his clemency authority to commute the death sentences of the 40 individuals on death row, to resentence them to a prison term, and to save lives,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said.
“State-sanctioned murder is not justice,” Pressley continued. “The death penalty is a cruel, racist, fundamentally flawed punishment that has no place in our society.”
She called the death penalty “deeply discriminatory” and claimed that it has “disproportionately been weaponized against black, brown, and low-income families for far too long.”
Rep. Cory Bush (D-MO) asserted that the death penalty is “a barbaric, inhumane practice most often weaponized against the most vulnerable among us” because “the overwhelming majority of people on death row are black and brown.”
She declared that President Joe Biden “has the power to save lives.”
Breitbart reported that several of the sentences Democrats are urging Biden to commute include those of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; Daniel Troya, who was convicted of drug-related killings of a family; Marvin Gabrion, who kidnapped and murdered a 19-year-old; Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 Jewish Americans; and Brandon Basham, who raped and killed a 44-year-old woman.
The press conference surrounded an Equal Rights Amendment introduced more than a century ago, The Washington Examiner explained.
“You have the opportunity, President Biden, to make equal rights a defining part of your legacy,” Bush said. “All it takes is your signature. I can’t sign it. We can’t sign it. Only you can make this happen with just a stroke of your pen. You can protect so many people today. President Biden, you must take action and take it now.”
