President Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row — a list that includes at least five child killers and several mass murderers — while leaving out three notorious fiends.
In the stunning act of clemency just two days before Christmas, Biden, 82, gave the reprieve to some of the nation’s most violent murderers — nine of whom were found too dangerous to live after butchering fellow inmates — as part of his effort at “ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” the White House said.
“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.”
Biden, who opposes the death penalty, lowered each of the 37 sentences to life in prison without parole. He did not say why specifically he considered the original penalties unjust.
The three men on federal death row did not get a commutation were 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.
Among those receiving the holiday cheer is Thomas Sanders, who in 2010 kidnapped and then shot 12-year-old Lexis Roberts four times and cut her throat in Louisiana — days after the girl watched as Sanders murdered her mother on a road trip near the Grand Canyon.
Christmas also came early for Anthony Battle, who 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, NC.
Jorge Avila-Torrez sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls — Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9 — who had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood in a suburb north of Chicago in 2005.
Four years later, he strangled naval officer Amanda Snell, 20, inside her barrack in Arlington, Va. --->READ MORE HERE
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Here is the complete list of those commutated:
Shannon Wayne Agofsky, 50, sentenced in 2004 for killing a prisoner in a federal prison in Texas.
Billie Jermone Allen, 45, and Norris G. Holder, co-defendants sentenced in 1998 for the death of a bank guard during an armed bank robbery in Missouri.
Aquilia Marcivicci Barnette, 50, sentenced in 1998 for the killing of his ex-girlfriend and a carjacker in North Carolina.
Brandon Leon Basham, 44, and Chadrick Evan Fulks, 48, sentenced in 2004 for the kidnapping and death of a woman after escaping from prison in South Carolina.
Anthony George Battle, 61, sentenced in 1997 for the killing of a prison guard in Georgia.
Meier Jason Brown, 54, sentenced in 2003 for the fatal stabbing of a postal worker in Georgia.
Carlos David Caro, 53, sentenced in 2007 for the killing of a prisoner in a federal prison in Virginia.
Wesley Paul Coonce Jr., 44, and Charles Michael Hall, 53, sentenced in 2014 for the killing of a prisoner in the mental health unit of a federal prison in Missouri.
Brandon Michael Council,38, sentenced in 2019 for the killing of two bank employees during a bank robbery in South Carolina.
Christopher Emory Cramer, 42, and Ricky Allen Fackerll, 40, co-defendants sentenced in 2018 for the killing of a fellow prisoner in a federal prison in Texas. --->Read the FULL STORY and REST OF THE LIST HERE
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