Fox News’ Audrey Conklin interviewed Dr. John Lott about Biden’s commutation for murderers on death row. This interview was related to Lott’s piece at Townhall titled: “Biden Commuting the Sentences of 37 Federal Death Row Inmates Ignores the Will of Most Americans.” The Fox News article was picked up by Fox affiliates across the country (e.g., see here and here). The Spanish language version of the news story is available here.
John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and former chief economist for the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Washington, told Fox News Digital that Biden’s rationale in deciding to commute the death sentences of 37 federal death-row inmates rather than all 40 remains unclear.
“There were mass murderers that he commuted the sentence for, and yet there are other ones who killed fewer that he didn’t commute the sentence for,” Lott said. “When I read his statement, it wasn’t obvious to me what his rationale was for dividing the cases the way he did.”
“If he thinks the death penalty is wrong, it’s not exactly clear where the line was drawn.”
Lott added that the president “could just be playing to his base” in his decision to commute 37 sentences, but noted that victims’ families have shared statements expressing how their loved ones were shown no mercy at the hands of those now receiving life sentences instead of death.
“A lot of these victims’ families have…pointed out that a number of these murderers have shown no remorse for their crimes,” Lott added. “They’ve engaged in brutal rapes and torture. They’ve killed a number of people in very gruesome ways.” . . .
Lott, however, said that death sentences often inspire criminals to plead guilty to their crimes in order to avoid death, thus allowing governments to avoid costly and emotionally taxing death-penalty trials. Dylann Roof — one of the three federal inmates Biden decided to keep on death row — initially expressed interest in pleading guilty in his federal case to avoid the death penalty, Lott noted.
“Economists have looked at this extensively and found that on average, for each execution that occurs, you’ll see a reduction in the number of murders by between about eight and eighteen,” Lott said. “That’s obviously related to the fact that [the death penalty] is a deterent for these guys.” . . .
