The Monday edition of the PBS News Hour gave an early Christmas gift to the outgoing Biden administration by openly embracing Biden’s controversial commutation of the sentences of 37 federal death row prisoners to life in prison, responsible in whole or part of over 50 murders, by NewsBusters count.
Such a controversy would merit at least a debate between opposing views on a tax-funded newscast with a congressional mandate to provide balanced coverage. But substitute anchor William Brangham’s only guest for the commutation segment was an anti-death penalty activist. There was not even a mention of the crimes committed by recipients of Biden’s ninth-inning clemency, much less any deep dive.
Anchor William Brangham: In one of the most significant moves against capital punishment, President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row. They will stay in prison for life, but will not be subject to execution. Biden's move is believed to have been driven in part by the incoming Trump administration and an expected hard-line policy shift on federal executions. Following all this closely is Robin Maher. She's the executive director of the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center.…
Robin Maher: ….This is an historic decision. This is the largest mass clemency grant of death-sentenced people by any U.S. president since Lincoln, and the first in the modern death penalty era. There are 40 people on death row; 37 of them now will receive new sentences of life without the possibility of parole. And, of course, there are about 2,100 people on state death rows throughout the country whose death sentences will not be affected by this decision. But part of the motivation for President Biden today was recognizing the racial bias and the unfairness of some of these federal death sentences….
(NBC News outclassed PBS and the other networks by actually delivering details about the spared killers: “Among those whose sentence was commuted: Kaboni Savage, a drug dealer involved in organized crime, convicted of murdering 12 people, four of them children, during a firebombing incident at a house of a federal witness.”)
Brangham offered not a single challenging question to his liberal guest, only invitations to clarify.
Brangham: Who are those 37, broadly speaking? I know it's a big group, but, like, roughly speaking, who are those people whose sentences were commuted today?
Maher: Yes, all of the men who will benefit from President Biden's decision today were sentenced to death decades ago, really in a very different era in our nation's history. This was a time of overzealous prosecutions and very harsh criminal justice penalties and policies that sent dozens of people to federal death rows for crimes they would not be federally prosecuted for today, so a very, very different time….”
Brangham portrayed Biden as a former law-and-order politician doing penance for his previous "infamous" views on crime.
Brangham: ….President Biden has a very complicated history with the criminal justice system. He was principally responsible for the infamous crime bill back in the 1990s that many critics have said led to mass incarceration. He wanted to do more on the death penalty during his administration, but was not able to until today….
"Not able to"? Or "too risky"?
Brangham quoted Biden’s statement on the commutations, which Maher used to bash the first Trump administration’s insistence on applying the death penalty to murderers. "Nonpartisan"?
Maher: President Biden was once a very strong supporter of the death penalty, but his change of heart about this really began several years ago, during the 2020 presidential campaign. You will remember at that time we had just come out of this breathtaking execution spree, where President Trump executed 12 men and one women -- one woman in just six months’ time. So we were still reeling from that event. And I think he recognized at that point that the federal death penalty deserved his closer examination.
I think he's looked at his conscience. I think he's looked at his own faith. And he most especially listened to the calls of many thousands of people who were asking him to make that decision, most important of which were victims' family members, some of whom had lost loved ones to the men on the federal death row, crimes they committed, which was really incredibly powerful.
What PBS didn’t look at, save by an online link to an Associated Press story: The “calls” of many of the victim's family members against Biden's move. So much for balance on PBS.
In contrast, another contentious “life” issue, abortion, gets only favorable treatment at the News Hour.
This segment was brought to you in part by BNSF Railway.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Hour
12/23/24
7:07:16 p.m. (ET)
William Brangham: In one of the most significant moves against capital punishment, President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row. They will stay in prison for life, but will not be subject to execution.
Biden's move is believed to have been driven in part by the incoming Trump administration and an expected hard-line policy shift on federal executions.
Following all this closely is Robin Maher. She's the executive director of the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center.
Robin Maher, so nice to have you here.
Robin Maher, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center: It's great to be here.
William Brangham: This is a pretty significant move, I mean, one of the most significant by a president with regards to federal death row inmates
What is the — what do these commutations mean for death penalty cases overall?
Robin Maher: Well, you're right. This is an historic decision. This is the largest mass clemency grant of death-sentenced people by any U.S. president since Lincoln, and the first in the modern death penalty era.
There are 40 people on death row; 37 of them now will receive new sentences of life without the possibility of parole. And, of course, there are about 2,100 people on state death rows throughout the country whose death sentences will not be affected by this decision.
But part of the motivation for President Biden today was recognizing the racial bias and the unfairness of some of these federal death sentences. And many of those criticisms ring true for the men and women on state death rows as well.
William Brangham: Who are those 37, broadly speaking? I know it's a big group, but, like, roughly speaking, who are those people whose sentences were commuted today?
Robin Maher: Yes, all of the men who will benefit from President Biden's decision today were sentenced to death decades ago, really in a very different era in our nation's history.
This was a time of overzealous prosecutions and very harsh criminal justice penalties and policies that sent dozens of people to federal death rows for crimes they would not be federally prosecuted for today, so a very, very different time.
And the Department of Justice has recently looked at these policies and made some real changes to its prosecution policies, but none of those changes benefited the men on the federal death row. So that's why President Biden needed to make the decision he made today.
William Brangham: As I said, it's almost all, 37 of 40. That leaves three behind.
Who are those three that did not get their sentences commuted?
Robin Maher: Yes, the three that did not get sentencing relief today were convicted of federal hate crimes or terrorism offenses.
And they include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of the Boston Marathon bombing, Dylann Roof, who was convicted of the hate crime of shooting in the Charleston church many years ago, and, most recently, Robert Bowers, who was convicted of targeting people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
All three of those men were convicted of crimes within the last 10 years. All three of them will remain on death row. The remaining 37 men will never be released from federal prison, but they will not be executed.
William Brangham: As you well know, President Biden has a very complicated history with the criminal justice system. He was principally responsible for the infamous crime bill back in the 1990s that many critics have said led to mass incarceration.
He wanted to do more on the death penalty during his administration, but was not able to until today. Today, he said this. I just want to read a quote that he said: "I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."
Is that your sense that that's principally what's driving this?
Robin Maher: Yes, well, President Biden was once a very strong supporter of the death penalty, but his change of heart about this really began several years ago during the 2020 presidential campaign.
You will remember at that time we had just come out of this breathtaking execution spree, where President Trump executed 12 men and one women — one woman in just six months time. So we were still reeling from that event.
And I think he recognized at that point that the federal death penalty deserved his closer examination. I think he's looked at his conscience. I think he's looked at his own faith. And he most especially listened to the calls of many thousands of people who were asking him to make that decision, most important of which were victims' family members, some of whom had lost loved ones to the men on the federal death row, crimes they committed, which was really incredibly powerful.
William Brangham: I know we can't predict what a future president would do, but is it your sense that, when President Trump returns to the White House, that he would take up federal executions, meaning, is — does it make sense in some way that Biden took this step today?
Robin Maher: I think some of what motivated President Biden was the urgency of this moment and the danger that those men were in.
President Trump has promised to use the federal death penalty to expand its use and to resume federal executions. But what I hope is that this President Trump will not just simply repeat the mistakes of the past. As President Biden has shown us today, we can all learn from our mistakes and make better decisions in the future. And that's what I'm hoping for.
William Brangham: All right, Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center, thank you so much for being here.
Robin Maher: My pleasure.
