Can Donald Trump reverse the commutation of the death penalty against Joe Biden?

With just weeks left in office, US President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates – potentially thwarting President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to expand federal executions during his upcoming term.

Biden’s move was immediately condemned by Republicans, with some accusing the president of siding with criminals rather than law-abiding Americans.

Federal executions were relatively rare before Trump’s first term, which ended with a spate of executions that ended a 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions during a presidential transition.

He has vowed to resume the practice when he returns to the White House in January, setting the stage for possible litigation early in the term.

Here’s what we know.

On Monday, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 death row inmatesand commuted her sentence to life imprisonment without parole.

Only three inmates still faced the death penalty, including convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers, who was sentenced to death for killing 11 worshipers and wounding seven in a 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh .

The third, Dylann Roof, was sentenced to death in 2017 for a mass shooting that killed nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

While the move was widely praised by human rights groups like Amnesty International, it was quickly condemned by some Republicans as well as Trump’s transition team and political allies.

In a statement, Trump communications director Steven Cheung said: “They are among the world’s worst murderers and this despicable decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families and their loved ones.”

“President Trump represents the rule of law that will return when he is back in the White House,” he added. Trump will not be able to reverse the conversions when he returns to the White House next month.

Texas Republican Chip Roy posted on X that the decision was “unconscionable” and an abuse of power “to commit a miscarriage of justice.”

Another Republican, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, said: “When Joe Biden and the Democrats have a choice between law-abiding Americans or criminals, they choose criminals every time.”

Some family members also expressed their anger.

On Facebook, Heather Turner – whose mother was killed in a bank robbery in 2017 – called the conversions a “gross abuse of power”.

“At no time did the President show any consideration for the victims,” she wrote. “He and his supporters have blood on their hands.”

The commutations do not apply to the roughly 2,200 death row inmates convicted by state courts over which the president has no authority.

During his campaign, Trump promised to resume federal executions and make more people eligible for the death penalty, including those convicted of child rape or drug and human trafficking, as well as immigrants, U.S. citizens or police officers kill.

“These are terrible, terrible, terrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime across the country,” Trump said as he announced his 2022 presidential bid.

“We will demand that anyone who sells drugs and is caught face the death penalty for their heinous actions,” he added.

There are more than 40 federal statutes that could theoretically carry the death penalty, from murders during a drug-related shootout to genocide.

Almost all of them – with the exception of espionage and treason – explicitly involve the death of a victim.

However, Trump has provided few details about how he plans to keep his campaign promise.

Despite the lack of clarity, Trump’s promises to expand the federal death penalty have drawn stark warnings from human rights activists.

In a Dec. 11 statement, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump’s “chilling” plans amounted to an extension of the “killing spree he embarked on in the final six months of his first presidency.”

“He has already shown us that he will keep these promises,” the statement said.

Inmates executed in the final days of Trump’s first administration included Lisa Montgomery, the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953, and Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row.

US media reported that Trump cannot reverse Biden’s changes.

Trump’s efforts to expand the death penalty to crimes other than murder are likely to face legal challenges.

For example, in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that people convicted of child rape could not be executed, adding that it was unclear whether the death penalty could be applied to crimes in which the victim was not killed.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, cases involving child victims are particularly vulnerable to wrongful convictions, can be “extremely emotional,” and can pit family members against each other.

Any further expansion of crimes eligible for the federal death penalty would require congressional action and legislative change.

In 2024, two bills — both sponsored by Florida Republican and Trump ally Anna Paulina Luna — sought to expand the application of capital crimes to include possession of child pornography and the trafficking, exploitation and abuse of children.

Both failed in the House of Representatives.

It is also unlikely that Trump will be able to quickly replenish the pool of federal death row inmates because most death penalty cases take years and are subject to lengthy appeals processes.

Although he has no direct authority over state executions, some experts have warned that Trump’s pro-death penalty stance could lead to more state executions.

“His rhetoric can and has led to draconian actions and attitudes from world leaders on a variety of issues, including in the context of the criminal justice system,” said Yasmin Cader, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality. told CNN.

In addition to the federal government and the US military, 27 US states still have the death penalty.

A Gallup poll conducted in October found that a slim majority of Americans – 53% – support the death penalty for convicted murderers, up from 50% the year before.