Washington: US President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people facing death row to life imprisonment. This announcement has been made just weeks before the inauguration of the newly elected US President Donald Trump, who is a vocal supporter of the death penalty. 

Sentence of three prisoners will remain intact

Biden's move offers life sentences for those convicted of killing police and military officers, people living on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as killings of security guards or inmates at federal facilities. It means only three inmates a year will now be executed.

These prisoners did not get relief

The three inmates who will be executed are Dylann Roof, who carried out a racially motivated killing of nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who bombed the 2013 Boston Marathon, and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. 

What did Biden say?

"I have dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system. Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, consistent with my administration's moratorium on the death penalty for cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," Biden said in a statement. (AP)