CNN’s Williams: Biden Only Commuted Death Sentences in Cases People Didn’t Know About

On Monday’s “CNN NewsNight,” CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams, who served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General during the Obama administration, said that while he thinks the death penalty should be abolished, President Joe Biden only commuted death sentences where the cases weren’t known.

Williams said, [relevant remarks begin around 29:15] “I do think this decision was a long time coming. I’m sensitive to these arguments that, well, if you’re going to end the federal death penalty, end the federal death penalty and don’t create this sort of ham-fisted explanation for why you’re carving out three cases.”

He then referenced National Review Senior Political Correspondent and Washington Post contributing columnist Jim Geraghty saying that the criteria for the commutations was that people who no one had heard of got commuted, “I would even be even more cynical and say that, well, if it’s a politically sensitive case, right? Like the Tree of Life matter or the Tsarnaev bombing…and that’s not to minimize the suffering or the severity of the crimes. The simple fact is, they whipped up a lot of the public and people know about them, and that’s why they were carved out. Now, the simple fact is, we should have done away with the federal death penalty a long time ago. And I say this as somebody who has tried hard to get people executed, but it is a horribly inconsistent, horribly flawed process that just simply — and recognizing how important justice and maybe even I’ll use the word vengeance is to the families of victims, and I understand that and I’m sensitive to it, I have worked with victims. But the simple fact is, there is another solution to proceeding with federal executions.”

Later in the segment, Williams stated that there shouldn’t be the death penalty unless we can say with certitude that an innocent person hasn’t gotten the death penalty in the U.S.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett