President Joe Biden Monday commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 men including at least five child killers and several mass murders. In his statement, Biden said that the pardon does not mean he does not condemn the murders but it is because he is more convinced now that death penalty should be shopped at the federal level.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement.
“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Full list of the 37 people who have had their death sentences commuted
Shannon Wayne Agofsky
Billie Jerome Allen
Aquilia Marcivicci Barnette
Brandon Leon Basham
Anthony George Battle
Meier Jason Brown
Carlos David Caro
Wesley Paul Coonce, Jr.
Brandon Michael Council
Christopher Emory Cramer
Len Davis
Joseph Ebron
Rickey Allen Fackrell
Edward Leon Fields, Jr.
Chadrick Evan Fulks
Marvin Charles Gabrion, II
Edgar Baltazar Garcia
Thomas Morocco Hager
Charles Michael Hall
Norris G. Holder
Richard Allen Jackson
Jurijus Kadamovas
Daryl Lawrence
Iouri Mikhel
Ronald Mikos
James H. Roane, Jr.
Julius Omar Robinson
David Anthony Runyon
Ricardo Sanchez, Jr.
Thomas Steven Sanders
Kaboni Savage
Mark Isaac Snarr
Rejon Taylor
Richard Tipton
Jorge Avila Torrez
Daniel Troya
Alejandro Enrique Ramies Umana
The 37 prisoners still face a life in prion with no chance of parole.
Thomas Sanders in 2010 kidnapped and then shot 12-year-old Lexis Roberts four times and cut her throat in Louisiana. Anthony Battle murdered an Atlanta prison guard with a hammer in 1994 while serving a life sentence for raping and murdering his wife, a US Marine, in 1987 at Camp Lejeune.
Who are the 3 people who did not get the pardon?
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his brother killed three people in 2013; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; and Dylann Roof, who killed nine black Charleston churchgoers in 2015.
Biden has been on a pardoning spree that started with his son Hunter Biden who was convicted of three gun felonies and one tax fraud. Then on December 12, Buden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people who had been temporarily released from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic — including Josephine Gray, the “Black Widow” who killed two of her ex-husbands and a third lover, and Rita Crundwell, who as comptroller of Dixon, Ill., stole nearly $54 million from the 15,000-person town over two decades.
