When the Trump administration in 2019 began executing death row inmates for the first time in more than a decade, Joe Biden became outspoken against the practice.

Previously a strong supporter of capital punishment, the president-elect helped make dozens of crimes punishable by death when he pushed through his now-infamous 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Throughout his time in the Senate, he consistently reaffirmed his position: Biden even said there were no “moral grounds” on which he opposed capital punishment during a 2000 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.