Outgoing President Joe Biden has commuted the death sentences of 37 federal inmates, including Anthony Battle, convicted of stabbing his wife to death in her barracks at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Battle, a former U.S. Army soldier, was on death row for killing a federal prison guard during a 1994 escape attempt. He was serving 20 years for the 1986 brutal murder of his wife, Minnie Foreman, a U.S. Marine lance corporal serving at Camp Lejeune. Court records indicate that Battle sexually assaulted her and then stabbed her multiple times, killing her in a fit of rage.

Also according to court documents, in 1994 Battle was found standing near the body of corrections officer D’Antonio Washington’s and admitted to killing him with a hammer. He told investigators that he felt “bossed around” and sought “respect” in prison. Biden’s actions mean that Battle will be off of death row and serve life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Monday’s mass clemency aligns with Biden’s efforts to restrict the federal death penalty to “terrorism and hate-motived mass murder.” When Biden took office, his administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions and expressed concern that the Trump administration would resume executions upon taking office in January. Anti-death penalty advocates praise the move, while critics argue it undermines justice for victims and faith in America’s judicial system.

Meantime, out-going Gov Roy Cooper is being urged by activists to commute all 136 death sentences in North Carolina as he prepares to leave office on January 1, 2025. The North Carolina Justice Center is holding a vigil in downtown Raleigh from December 10 through December 31 to pressure Cooper to exercise the governor’s commutation authority. Carrying out the death penalty in North Carolina has been paused for nearly 20 years amid lawsuits stemming from the Racial Justice Act.

The White House issued a statement on Monday morning regarding Biden’s recent actions to commute sentences.

“He believes that America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder – which is why today’s actions apply to all but those cases,” read the statement. “When President Biden came into office, his Administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and his actions today will prevent the next Administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice.”

 Earlier this month, the President announced clemency for 1,500 convictions including some who were released from prison and placed under house arrest during the COVID-19 pandemic, and others convicted of non-violent crimes from embezzlement and bank fraud to cocaine distribution. It is the largest single-day grant of clemency in history.

Monday’s 37 sentence commutations leave just three people on the federal death row. Those include Robert Bowers, convicted in the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dylan Roof, convicted of killing nine black worshipers in 2015 at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.