OAN Staff James Meyers
8:22 AM – Monday, December 23, 2024
President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 men on federal death row, a list that includes at least five child killers and several mass murderers, just two days before Christmas.
In the stunning act of clemency, Biden gave the reprieve to the nation’s most violent murderers, nine of whom were found too dangerous to live after killing other 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 is known for opposing the death penalty, lowered each of the 37 sentences to life in prison without parole.
Among some of those receiving the commuted sentences 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.
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, Virginia.
Biden has used his presidential clemency powers in the past month with his time running out at the White House come January.
On December 1st, Biden issued a pardon for his son Hunter Biden, giving him a clean slate from his June conviction of three federal gun felonies and his September Guilty plea to $1.4 million in tax fraud from foreign business dealings in which he repeatedly involved his father.
However, Biden has caused controversy for cannabis activists by failing to honor his 2019 campaign pledge to release “everyone” in prison for marijuana.
Just before the 2022 Midterm elections, he announced a mass pardon for people convicted of simple pot possession, of whom none were in prison, causing outrage from prisoners who called it a “slap in the face.”
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