JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
This morning President Biden announced he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row. That means the men won't face execution under the incoming Trump administration. NPR's Chiara Eisner interviewed one of the men whose sentences were reduced on Friday, and she joins us now to talk about the development. Hi there.
CHIARA EISNER, BYLINE: Hey.
SUMMERS: Chiara, you reported last week on advocates who were calling for President Biden to spare the lives of all 40 men on federal death row. And in that reporting, you talked with Billie Allen, one of the men who was convicted of murder. He was on death row, awaiting execution. This is obviously big news. Have you heard from him since?
EISNER: I did check in with his lawyer this morning, Mike Rayfield, and he said the news is a, quote, "big relief." Allen was asking that Biden give him a pardon because he believes he's innocent. Now, this is a commutation. It's not a pardon, so he won't go free. But what this does mean is that Allen and the 36 others who have been on federal death row - they won't have to face execution under the Trump administration. Allen didn't have any appeals left, so he could have been next had Biden not decided to commute his sentence. Here's what he said when I spoke to him a few weeks ago. He was anxious Biden wouldn't do what he just did today.
BILLIE ALLEN: I think preparing yourself to die is a lot easier than holding on to hope because I'm worried. Will my petition convince him that he should do the right thing? And then if he doesn't, then basically, I have to prepare my family for the worse.
SUMMERS: And, of course, obviously, now with this news, he won't have to do that. Chiara, what do we know about why President Biden commuted the sentence of Allen and those other men?
EISNER: Biden said in a statement this morning that in good conscience, he couldn't stand back and let this new administration resume executions that he had halted. Back in 2021, the Biden administration issued a moratorium pausing all executions of people on federal death row. He said he is more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. Those are some pretty strong words from the president.
SUMMERS: Right. And he didn't commute all the sentences, we should note - just 37 out of the 40. What do we know about why he left three people on death row?
EISNER: Yeah. So he made clear in that statement that he was commuting the sentences of everyone except those who had cases involved with terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder. There are three people left on death row who had cases like that. There's Dylann Roof, who shot nine parishioners dead in a historic Black church in Charleston, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is the Boston Marathon bomber, and Robert Bowers, who gunned down 11 people in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
SUMMERS: So the men who had their sentences commuted - what happens next? Could the incoming Trump administration simply reverse this decision?
EISNER: No. This is not one of those decisions that can be reversed by the incoming administration. All of these men that have had their sentences commuted. They're going to remain in prison, and most are expected to stay there for the rest of their lives. They are all convicted of murder at the end of the day.
SUMMERS: NPR's Chiara Eisner. Thank you so much.
EISNER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF CIGARETTES AFTER SEX SONG, "SUNSETZ") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
