Martin Luther King Jr.’s son calls on Biden to make historic move before leaving the White House as he warns of ‘deeply troubling’ consequences

The son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. has called on President Joe Biden to take one big step before he leaves the White House in January.

In one essay for the New York TimesMartin Luther King III urged Biden to commute all 40 federal death sentences to life sentences.

The president had already commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes in the largest day of clemency ever in the United States.

The Biden administration has also declined to carry out a single execution, but King wrote that Biden must do more in his final few weeks in office.

He said the president would “meaningfully move America toward racial reconciliation and equal justice” if he commuted all 40 federal death sentences.

“If Mr. Biden does not exercise his constitutional authority to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row, we will certainly see another wave of deeply disturbing executions, as we did during the first Trump administration,” King wrote.

He further noted that a majority of convicts executed during Trump’s first administration were “people of color” and that “at least one was convicted by an all-white jury and that in a number of cases there was evidence of racial bias . ‘

Several convicts also presented evidence of intellectual disabilities or serious mental illness, King wrote, noting, “The same problems characterized the cases of many of the forty men on federal death row today, more than half of whom are people from be color.

The president had already commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes in the largest day of clemency ever in the United States.

“My father taught that the death penalty multiplies hatred, violence, and revenge,” King concluded his essay.

“Commuting federal death sentences would be a decisive shift toward love, peace and mercy.”

Biden had said he would take steps to review clemency requests in his final weeks as president after commuting the sentences of 1,500 people placed in home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said these people would have received shorter sentences if charged under current laws, policies and practices.

Biden also pardoned more than two dozen people convicted of nonviolent drug possession or distribution charges.

“As President, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated repentance and rehabilitation, giving Americans the opportunity to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and to take steps to address disparities in sentencing for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug crimes,” Biden said.

But Republicans condemned the president for his actions, less than two weeks after he pardoned his own son, Hunter, who was awaiting sentencing on gun possession and income tax charges.

“Whatever legacy he thought he had, he destroyed it,” Texas Republican Rep. Jake Ellzey told DailyMail.com.

King III (pictured with his father, mother and sister Bernice) wrote that his father ‘taught that the death penalty multiplies hatred, violence and revenge’

He called it “nonsense” that Biden would show the greatest act of clemency ever, while on a separate day he himself would pardon his son Hunter. “That’s going to have to be explained to the people on the other side of the aisle,” he added.

Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls also told DailyMail.com that Biden likely has many more payouts in store for close allies.

“He’s still going to do something for maybe some of the J6 committee and some of these others,” Nehls continued.

However, Democrats were enthusiastic about Biden’s historic action.

“I’m encouraged by what he did this morning,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said Thursday.

“The President showed this morning that he is focused on issues of equality. He is focused on principles. And he came out in a powerful way.”

Squad member Ayanna Pressley, who had pressured Biden to provide commutations for criminals, also celebrated the president’s choice.

‘Clemency changes and saves lives. And thanks [Biden]the lives of 1,500 families will be changed forever,” she wrote on X on Thursday.