Four men who are on federal death row for crimes committed in Missouri have had their sentences commuted by President Joe Biden.
Biden announced Monday that he was commuting the sentences of most of the 40 federal inmates facing execution. The president said in a statement that he condemned the criminal acts that led to the sentences but added “in good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
The four men will spend the rest of their lives in prison.
A jury convicted and sentenced Billie Allen and Norris Holder to death in 1998 for an armed robbery of the Lindell Bank and Trust near Forest Park that left a guard dead.
Wesley Coonce and Charles Hall were convicted in 2014 of killing a fellow inmate at the federal medical prison in Springfield, Missouri. At the time, Coonce was serving a life sentence for a Texas rape and kidnapping. Hall was serving a 16-year sentence after pleading guilty to threatening a federal judge and prosecutor in Maine.
