Joe Biden Spares 37 Death Row Inmates Before Donald Trump Resumes Executions. Here Are the 3 He Didn't Protect

President Joe Biden spared the lives of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row before passing the torch to President-elect Donald Trump, who notably executed five people in the final days of his first term. Biden did not pardon the murderers, but rather downgraded their sentences from the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” the president, 82, said in a statement on Monday, Dec. 23.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” he continued. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

Despite his rebuke of capital punishment, Biden declined to intervene in the cases of three individuals who were given the death penalty.

Those who remain on federal death row now are Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black people at a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 Jewish people during an attack at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who killed three people and injured 264 others when he detonated bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013.

Asked about his choice to exclude only three inmates, an administration official tells PEOPLE: “The remaining individuals were convicted for hate-motivated mass murder or acts of terrorism. That is the distinction.”

When Biden took office in 2021, he temporarily suspended federal executions. His latest actions “will prevent the next Administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice,” according to officials.

Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy, wrote in a statement, “I commend President Biden for this historic act and hope that governors and state executives follow the president’s lead at a time when many of our courts are abandoning their role to ensure fairness and reliability in criminal cases. Leadership by elected officials will be more critical than ever.”

Boston-area Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley also praised Biden for his revolutionary actions after having held a press conference earlier this month to ask him to re-sentence those on federal death row.

“There is no action more powerful or righteous than sparing someone’s life, and today President Biden is doing just that,” she wrote in a statement. “The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity.”

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On Dec. 12, Biden separately announced clemency for nearly 1,500 individuals placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic who “have shown successful rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making their communities safer.”

He also pardoned 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes. 

The briefing stated that Biden is “the first president ever to issue categorical pardons to individuals convicted of simple use and possession of marijuana, and to former LGBTQI+ service members convicted of private conduct because of their sexual orientation.”

In 2020, Reuters reported, Biden campaigned on criminal justice reform and said he’d work “to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow.”