Biden vowed to end the death penalty. Activists are demanding action as he nears the 100-day mark

While there haven't been any federal or state executions since Biden took office, about 2,500 men and women sit on death row in federal and state prisons across the country -- and advocates say that, in the absence of an executive order from the White House, a state can at any moment schedule executions or the Justice Department can decide to calendar a federal inmate's death date.

The President has not directly addressed the death penalty since taking office -- though White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in March that Biden continues to have"grave concerns" about the practice. In response, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley sponsored a bill to abolish the death penalty, commute death row inmates' sentences to life without the possibility of parole and to destroy death chambers in prisons. The bill languished but was reintroduced in January and has been referred to committee.

"He can't do much about the state death row cases, that's up to the governors and legislators -- but he could sweep death row clean by commuting all sentences from death to life without the possibility of parole," Medwed told CNN. Bermudez wrongfully served 18 years in a New York prison for a 1991 homicide and since his release, he has devoted his life to abolishing the death penalty. Bermudez is"disappointed" that Biden hasn't taken a small measure of action by now.

The Death Penalty Information Center reported in February that 185 people who received death sentences since the 1970s had been wrongfully convicted and exonerated. The nonprofit research organization, which does not take a stance on the practice, also found that of the 1,532 people executed since 1976, 20 men had"strong evidence of innocence.

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