Biden betrays his moral standing in Buffalo: Death penalty decision reveals his true colors

While campaigning for the White House, Joe Biden suggested that he stood against the death penalty in all cases.

The article describes a particular racially motivated murder of 10 people at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022. Payton Grendon was convicted and sentenced to life in New York, but the Justice Department just announced it is trying him for federal crimes and that it would seek the death penalty. Hence it is possible if convicted and sentenced to be executed President Biden can commute his sentence.

If Biden commutes the death penalty for anyone prior to the election he invites this becoming an issue Trump or whoever he is running against will use against him.

Consider the following from Public Opinion on the Death Penalty: Where Republicans and Democrats Agree (and Disagree) in the Georgetown Public Policy Review:

Given that average support for the death penalty is substantially higher among Republicans compared to Democrats, this issue has a clear partisan skew. Nonetheless, there is support and opposition for this policy on either side of the political spectrum. Though most Republicans surveyed support or strongly support the death penalty, nearly six in ten believe there is a risk of executing innocent people. Sixty-two percent of Democrats oppose or strongly oppose the death penalty, but nearly half of Democrats believe it can be morally justified. Proponents of the death penalty may feel secure in the large swath of Republican support, and they may be equally wary of strong Democratic opposition. These proponents should consider the aspects of death penalty policies that people across parties can agree on. Despite Republican support for the death penalty on the whole, many Republican respondents were skeptical of the policy’s ability to deter crime and safeguard against the execution of innocent people. Proponents may consider moderate reforms to the death penalty to appease these concerns and maintain Republican support. 

GPPR

There isn’t much room in the middle when it comes to the debate over the death penalty. One can be mostly against it with some exceptions like with a mentally incompetent person or a child but this always leaves the moral question as to whether the states is justified in taking a life of a person no matter how horrendious the crime they committed was.

Since Grendon hasn’t been tried and sentenced to death and I doubt even if this happens before the election what with appeals he wouldn’t face execution for years this case, or the death penalty, won’t be an issue in the election. Even so, this issue puts Biden in the position of having to answer the question, if asked, as to whether he’d commute any sentences for people on federal death row.

Answering in the affirmative makes this an issue. My sense is that it would lose him more votes than it would gain him. The racially motivated Grendon case in particular could be used by the GOP candidate to try to sway Black voters to vote for him or her if Biden says he’d commute the sentence if he’s sentenced to death.

Saying that in some cases at least he wouldn’t complicates the matter and also turns it into a poltical issue which could lose or gain him votes.

It is a hallmark of our times that a moral president has to even consider making a statement, let alone take an action, that goes against their firmly held morals.

I don’t know if Biden even reads Salon but if he does I can imagine his dismay at seeing the words “betrays his moral standing” in the title of this article.

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