WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates, including two with ties to St. Louis. 

Billie Jerome Allen and Norris G. Holder were on death row after being convicted for killing a security guard during a robbery at Lindell Bank and Trust in 1997. 

The men were found guilty of entering the bank with assault rifles, killing 46-year-old Richard Heflin, then leading police on a chase that ended with a fiery crash in Forest Park. 

Biden converted the punishments from death row to life in prison without parole. 

The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during Biden's term. But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.