Victims and families react as Biden spares the lives of 37 federal death row inmates

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Families of victims and others affected by crimes that resulted in federal convictions on death row shared a range of emotions Monday, from relief to anger, after President Joe Biden dozens of sentences converted.

Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The inmates include people convicted of killing police, military officers and federal prisoners and guards. Others were involved in deadly robberies and drug deals.

Three inmates remain on federal death row: Dylann Roofconvicted of the 2015 racist murder of nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 congregants in Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history.

Opponents of the death penalty praised Biden for a decision they had been looking for for a long time. Supporters of Donald Trumpan outspoken supporter of expanding the death penalty, criticized this move as an attack on common decency just weeks before the president-elect takes office.

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was commuted, said executing “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would not have brought me peace.”

“The president has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement also released by the White House, “and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”

Heather Turner, whose mother, Donna Major, was killed in a 2017 bank robbery in South Carolina, called Biden’s commutation of the killer’s sentence a “clear gross abuse of power” in a Facebook post and added that the weeks she spent in spent in court with the hope of justice were now ‘just a waste of time’.

“At no point did the president take the victims into consideration,” Turner wrote. “He and his supporters have blood on their hands.”

There has always been a wide range of opinions about the punishment Roof should face among the families of the nine people murdered and the survivors of the Mother Emanuel AME Church massacre. Many have forgiven him, but they cannot forget, and their forgiveness does not mean that they do not want to see him put to death for what he has done.

Felicia Sanders survived the shooting while protecting her granddaughter as she watched Roof kill her son Tywanza and her aunt Susie Jackson. Sanders brought her bullet-ridden, blood-stained Bible to his sentencing and then said she couldn’t even close her eyes to pray because Roof started shooting during the closing prayer of the Bible study that night.

In a text message to her attorney, Andy Savage, Sanders called Biden’s decision not to spare Roof’s life a wonderful Christmas gift.

Michael Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Hurd, was killed, told The Associated Press that Roof’s lack of remorse and the country’s simmering white nationalism mean he is the kind of dangerous and evil person for whom the death penalty is intended.

“This was a crime against a race of people,” Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, just that they were black.”

But the Rev. Sharon Richer, Tywanza Sanders’ cousin and whose mother, Ethel Lance, was killed, criticized Biden for not sparing Roof and clearing out the entire death row. She said every time Roof’s case comes up in countless appeals, it’s like reliving the massacre.

“I want the president to understand that when you put a murderer on death row, you also keep the families of their victims in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until an execution takes place before we can begin to heal,” said Richer. a statement.

Richer, a board member of Death Penalty Action, which wants to abolish the death penalty, was driven to tears by conflicting emotions during a Zoom press conference on Monday.

“The families are being left as hostages for the years and years of calls to come,” Richer said. “I have to stay away from the news today. I have to turn off the TV, because whose face am I going to see?

Biden is paying more attention to the three inmates he didn’t want to spare, something they all wanted as part of what drove them to be killed, said Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action.

“These three racists and terrorists left on death row committed their crimes for political reasons. Allowing Donald Trump to execute them will in reality provide a global platform for their agenda of hate,” Bonowitz said.

Two of the men whose sentences were commuted were Norris Holder and Billie Jerome Allen, who were on death row for opening fire with assault rifles during a 1997 St. Louis bank robbery in which a security guard, 46-year-old Richard Heflin, perished.

Holder’s attorney, Madeline Cohen, said in an email that Holder was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. She said his case “reflects many of the system’s flaws,” and thanked Biden for commuting his sentence.

“Norris’ case is an example of the racial bias and arbitrariness that led the president to commute federal death sentences,” Cohen said. “Norris has always been deeply remorseful for the pain his actions caused, and we hope this decision brings some closure to Richard Heflin’s family.”

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Swenson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.

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