Pro-Trump prison warden asks Biden to commute all death sentences before leaving

FIRST ON FOX: A pro-Trump erstwhile Florida situation warden who oversaw executions is urging President Biden to commute each national and subject decease sentences earlier leaving office.

"I voted for President Trump successful each of his campaigns, and I hold with him connected astir of his positions, but not the decease penalty," Ron McAndrew, erstwhile warden of the Florida State Penitentiary, wrote successful a missive to the outgoing president. "I person written to President Trump personally to inquire him to halt calling for much executions."

McAndrew, a self-described "law-and-order guy," Air Force seasoned and pro-life Catholic, said that aft overseeing 3 electrical seat executions and witnessing 5 lethal injections, helium grew to reason the decease penalty. 

While helium had reservations from the start, helium told Fox News Digital that helium saw a burst of flames from the caput of Pedro Medina during his execution successful 1997 connected the electrical chair. That incidental became a watershed infinitesimal successful Florida and different parts of the state that marked the opening of the extremity of electrocution. 

TRUMP EXECUTION RESTART TO PUT BOSTON MARATHON BOMBER, CHARLESTON CHURCH SHOOTER, MORE KILLERS IN HOT SEAT

Ron McAndrew, a erstwhile Florida situation warden, testifies during a 2019 proceeding regarding a decease enactment inmate. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner)

"A plume of fume and past a occurrence that came down underneath the helmet and retired close successful beforehand of my face, had it travel a fewer inches further, it would person really burned me," helium said. 

Later, helium said the stench was truthful overpowering that, "it was similar we had gone to a quality barbecue."

State investigators recovered that Medina, a convicted murderer and Cuban refugee, had died instantly – but the incidental traumatized McAndrew and astatine slightest 2 twelve different witnesses, helium said.

The incidental led Florida to follow lethal injections instead, but helium said that signifier of execution was nary little disturbing for the situation workers who carried it out.

TRUMP EXPECTED TO END BIDEN-ERA DEATH PENALTY PAUSE, EXPAND TO MORE FEDERAL INMATES

Pedro Medina, a convicted killer, was sentenced to decease and went to the electrical seat connected March 25, 1997. He was 1 of the past inmates electrocuted successful this mode aft his caput burst into flames, filling the enclosure with fume and horrifying onlookers. (Archive PL / Alamy Stock Photo)

"The heaving of the thorax is an example," helium told Fox News Digital. "You tin spot it if you're up close, and you're the executioner oregon a subordinate of the team. You tin spot that they're trying to interruption retired of their ain body, truthful to speak. But the witnesses don't spot this. They spot it as, like, a clean, a sanitary signifier of sidesplitting someone."

At 1 point, helium said, helium began seeing executed inmates successful his slumber and drinking heavy – fractional a vessel of Johnnie Walker a nighttime – arsenic a result. Eventually, helium was diagnosed with terrible stress. Now helium is simply a staunch protagonist of abolishing the decease penalty.

Read the letter here:

"I consciousness compelled to accidental determination is 1 happening successful peculiar that I hold astir with President Biden," McAndrew wrote successful his letter. "We stock a beardown absorption to the decease penalty. President Biden has the powerfulness to amusement mercy done the process of enforcement clemency, and I impulse that helium bash truthful expeditiously for everyone connected the national and subject decease rows."

When asked wherefore the worst of the worst killers connected decease row, including Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Charleston religion shooter Dylann Roof and Pittsburgh synagogue gunman Robert Bowers, should person their lives spared, helium questioned wherever we should gully the enactment and suggested incarcerating them each with nary anticipation of parole instead.

BRYAN KOHBERGER'S FIGHT AGAINST DEATH PENALTY GETS DAY IN COURT; EXPERT SKEPTICAL OF DEFENSE'S ARGUMENTS

"If this aforesaid inmate was doing beingness without anticipation of parole, he'd beryllium moving betwixt 40 and 60 hours per week whether helium liked it oregon not," helium said. "He would beryllium making a contribution…rather than being a load connected the taxpayers, sitting successful a compartment getting country work for 25 years."

WATCH: Death enactment inmates connected announcement aft Trump's re-election

Abraham Bonowitz, who co-founded the radical Death Penalty Action with McAndrew, told Fox News Digital that superior punishment should not beryllium a partisan issue.

"Capital punishment is government overreach astatine its worst," helium said. "Anyone who does not spot the authorities to taxation america reasonably oregon travel up with a harmless vaccine should person a hard clip trusting authorities with the powerfulness to execute its citizens."

He besides extended the entreaty to Elon Musk, the aboriginal co-head of a caller Department of Government Efficiency, if Biden rejects the letter.

President Biden, not pictured, meets with President-elect Donald Trump successful the Oval Office of the White House connected Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024 successful Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

"We're excited to person a furniture level authoritative focused connected authorities efficiency, due to the fact that this is the archetypal clip anyone successful the national authorities is positioned to destruct the decease punishment by enforcement order," Bonowitz said. "There is nary existent authorities programme much wasteful, ineffective and inefficient than superior punishment."

The missive comes arsenic Trump has vowed to not lone extremity Biden's moratorium connected superior punishment, but besides to grow the database of crimes that tin beryllium punishable with execution to see kid rape, quality trafficking and the execution of U.S. citizens by amerciable immigrants.

There are presently 40 inmates connected national decease row, and they see home terrorists, cause kingpins and criminals who had witnesses against them killed.

Tsarnaev, who killed 4 and wounded hundreds; Roof, who killed 9 astatine a Bible study; Bowers, who killed 11 astatine the Tree of Life Synagogue; and Kaboni Savage, a Philadelphia cause lord who killed 12 radical – including 4 children linked to an informant – would each spot clemency nether the proposal.

President Biden listens arsenic Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani speaks successful the Oval Office of the White House connected April 15, 2024 successful Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The U.S. authorities has executed 50 inmates since 1927, according to the Bureau of Prisons, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Cold War spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. That is acold less than the idiosyncratic states, which person executed much than 1,500 condemned inmates successful the past 50 years.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

McAndrew besides took contented with the peculiar attraction decease enactment inmates receive. Unlike different prisoners, they bash not person to enactment a occupation down bars and contribute, successful immoderate way, to their ain "upkeep." They person a TV, a backstage compartment and are kept abstracted from the wide population.

In places similar California, wherever decease enactment inmates are harmless from execution owed to a moratorium against superior punishment, they besides person entree to elite attorneys and each the clip successful the satellite to effort and combat their circumstances.

The feds carried retired decease sentences for 13 national prisoners during Trump's archetypal term, the astir nether immoderate president successful a century. Biden declared a moratorium connected national executions aft taking bureau successful 2021.

The White House did not respond to a petition for comment.