JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Last week President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned 39 others. A growing number of groups have asked the president to spare the lives of the 40 prisoners on federal death row by commuting their sentences, too. In reporting that story, NPR's Chiara Eisner spoke with a man sentenced to death for murder who says he is innocent and was wrongly convicted.
CHIARA EISNER, BYLINE: Billie Allen was sentenced to death when he was 19 years old and has lived on federal death row for more than two decades. He called NPR from his prison cell in Terra Haute, Indiana.
Hey, Billie.
BILLIE ALLEN: How you doing?
EISNER: Before Donald Trump left office in 2021, the federal government executed 13 people in six months. That's more prisoners than were executed during the previous 10 administrations combined.
ALLEN: Word came down that they were going to - you know, somebody had got a execution date, but nobody knew who it was. So, you know, the door's open, and then all of a sudden, you hear, you know, numerous footsteps that mean officers are coming to get somebody.
EISNER: Allen had no more appeals left. That means there was nothing stopping him from being the one that was executed next.
ALLEN: When you're in that moment, your heart is racing. You're wondering - you're like, OK, is this going to be my last day to live? It's like being picked out of a - you know, being picked out, you know, to be killed, and there's nothing you can do.
EISNER: He says that waiting to see if Biden will intervene to commute his sentence over these past few weeks has been excruciating.
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 worst.
EISNER: Allen is asking for a pardon. He says he's innocent. Others want commutations instead. That would mean the men would not go free. Their sentences could be reduced to life in prison. A group of politicians and anti-death penalty activists gathered near the Capitol last week to ask the president to do just that. Marilyn Stark was one of the activists in the group.
MARILYN STARK: I mean, I'm really hopeful that he will take advantage of this opportunity to commute all the sentences on death row. People can be safe without executing other people, and we get it wrong a lot, too.
EISNER: A few minutes later, Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Presley approached the podium.
AYANNA PRESSLEY: We all watched with horror as the first Trump administration went on an unprecedented execution spree at the end of its first term. It is a terrifying reality that President Biden must address now.
EISNER: Many more groups are echoing that same plea. Twenty-nine former correctional officers, some of whom helped carry out executions themselves, sent an open letter in June. More than 150 family members of murder victims sent one in October. Just this month at the Vatican, Pope Francis asked people to pray that the prisoners be shown mercy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
POPE FRANCIS: (Through interpreter) Let us think of these brothers and sisters of our and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.
EISNER: Not everyone agrees that the sentences should be commuted. Some of the men on death row are notorious. Dzokhar Tsarnaev planted the bomb at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013, which killed three people. Dylann Roof shot nine people dead at a historic Black church in South Carolina in 2015. Both are on federal death row, and they're neighbors of Billie Allen's in Terra Haute. He thinks even their sentences should be commuted.
ALLEN: Because a lot of people that I'm around I've got to know over the years. You know, some of the people here have made dramatic changes over their lives.
EISNER: Allen said he respected how the president pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, in early December.
ALLEN: I'm asking for the same justice and for the same compassion and for the same, I guess you could say, relief that, you know, you gave your son.
EISNER: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said the President plans to continue reviewing petitions for clemency but did not give more details. Chiara Eisner, NPR News. 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.
