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US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed that he will direct the US Justice Department to "vigorously" pursue the death penalty for perpetrators once he takes charge.

Just days after President Joe Biden granted pardon to 37 death row inmates, Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that as soon as he is inaugurated in January 2025, he will issue the order to protect Americans from the "monsters".

What did Trump say?

Trump, on his social media platform, vowed "As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters."

"We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!," he stressed.

Can he reverse the pardons?

No, incoming president Donald Trump cannot change or reverse the clemency granted by the incumbent president.

According to Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution, the POTUS "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." These pardons cannot be overturned, by a court, Congress or another President for that matter.

Biden's clemency

US President Biden on Monday (Dec 23) commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 inmates on federal death row in the country.

The crimes of the 37 convicts who had their death sentences "reclassified from execution to life without the possibility of parole" included murder, kidnapping and shooting, yet they received clemency.

In a statement, he said, "Make no mistake I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss."

"But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.

In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."

However, three convicts, Dylann Roof, a white Supremacist, who was behind the Charleston church shooting of 2015 Dzhokhar "Jahar" Anzorovich Tsarnaev, who along with his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, carried out the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 and Robert Gregory Bowers is the perpetrator behind the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting were not part of Biden's clemency.