President-elect Trump denounced the outgoing administration’s granting of clemency to what he termed the nation’s “worst killers,”
Following President Biden’s commutation of sentences for numerous death row inmates, President-elect Donald Trump pledged his administration’s commitment to robustly pursuing capital punishment for violent offenders.
On Monday, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal inmates facing execution, reducing their penalties to life imprisonment without parole.
“I unequivocally condemn these murderers, share the grief of the victims’ families, and empathize with their immeasurable and permanent loss,” stated the outgoing president. Simultaneously, he declared his resolve to halt federal executions.
“In good conscience, I cannot allow a new administration to resume executions I had stopped,” Biden explained. A moratorium on federal executions was implemented in 2021 by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Trump criticized the commutations on social media, stating, “Joe Biden just commuted the death sentences of 37 of the worst killers in our country,” on Truth Social. “Hearing about their crimes is unbelievable. This decision is incomprehensible. Victims’ families are further devastated and shocked.”
Trump vowed to direct the Department of Justice to “vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”
According to the New York Post, these commutations included that of Thomas Sanders, convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl and her mother in 2010. Another recipient of clemency, Anthony Battle, murdered a prison guard with a hammer in 1994 while serving a life sentence for raping and murdering his wife, the Post reported.
The Los Angeles Times reported that clemency was also granted to Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas, who were responsible for killing five people in a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme in the early 2000s.
Biden also granted clemency to Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted and stabbed two young girls to death in 2005, and four years later strangled US Navy officer Amanda Snell.
“I would prefer he faced the death penalty,” Alex Snell, the victim’s brother, told the Post. “That was the appropriate punishment.”
The family of Donna Major, a bank teller killed during a 2017 robbery by Brandon Council, whose sentence Biden commuted, also denounced the president’s actions. “I remain angry. I’m upset that one man can make this decision without consulting the victims, without any consideration for our suffering,” said Major’s daughter, Heather Turner, to Fox News.
During his campaign, Trump accused Democrats of leniency towards violent crime, asserting their failure to address illegal immigration and undermining police in major cities.