President Biden commuted the “death sentences of child killers and mass murderers 2 days before Christmas,” reports the New York Post.
“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…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.”
That includes “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.”
And “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.”
And Jorge Avila-Torrez, who “sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls — Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9 — who had been riding their bicycles.’
“Iouri Mikhel, another clemency recipient, was convicted of murdering five Russian and Georgian immigrants after kidnapping them for ransom, which in some cases was paid before he killed them.”
“Kaboni Savage, meanwhile, was convicted of committing or ordering the deaths of 12 people including four children as a Philadelphia drug dealer — while James Roane, Jr. participated in the murder of 11 people as a drug dealer in Richmond, Va.”
Biden has endangered the safety of prison staff and inmates by commuting the death sentences of 9 inmates who killed other people while in prison. Without the death penalty, an inmate already serving a life sentence receives no additional penalty when he kills a fellow inmate or a prison guard. Such inmates have nothing to lose by killing again. Some inmates have killed fellow inmates repeatedly. One inmate beat his cellmate to death while in one prison. Then, after being put in another prison, he murdered yet another inmate.
By reducing the penalty for those who committed mass murder, Biden has eliminated a deterrent to killing over and over again. Thus, Biden’s action could lead to the loss of innocent lives.
Several studies have found that the death penalty deters killings of innocent people. As the Associated Press noted in 2007, “Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five, and 14).”
Thus, ending the death penalty endangers innocent lives.
