Just two days before Christmas, President Joe Biden gave several child killers and mass murderers the gift of a lifetime.
In a shocking act of clemency Monday morning, as part of an effort to "ensur[e] a fair and effective justice system," Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 convicted criminals (out of 40 on federal death row). Of those spared from execution, at least five killed children, nine were deemed too dangerous to live after butchering fellow inmates, and many of them committed mass murders.
The clemency recipients include Thomas Sanders, who on September 8, 2010, kidnapped, repeatedly shot, and cut the throat of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts in Louisiana, days after she witnessed him murder her mother on a road trip near the Grand Canyon. He dumped the child's body in the woods until a hunter ultimately found her. A forensic analysis determined that Sanders slit the girl's throat with such force that the knife left slash marks on her cervical vertebra.
Laura Hobbs (8) and Krystal Tobias (9) were sexually assaulted and murdered. While prosecutors went after someone else, their actual killer, Jorge Avila-Torrez, went on to kill at least one other woman and rape others. Biden just commuted his death sentence. pic.twitter.com/teFmiBx0DM
— AG (@AGHamilton29) December 23, 2024
As Katie covered, Christmas also came early for serial child rapist Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls—8-year-old Laura Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias—who were riding their bicycles in a suburb north of Chicago on May 8, 2005. Four years later, Avila-Torrez strangled naval officer Amanda Snell, age 20, inside her barrack in Arlington, Virginia, on July 11, 2009. He had bound her wrists with a power cord, which he also strangled her with, and stuffed the woman's remains inside a locker.
Anthony Battle, who killed an Atlanta prison guard with a hammer in 1994 while serving a life sentence for raping and murdering his wife, a U.S. Marine, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, was taken off death row, too.
So were Philadelphia drug kingpin Kaboni Savage, who ordered the deaths of 12 victims, including four children burned alive in a firebombing of their family's home; Iouri Mikhel, who murdered five Russian and Georgian immigrants after kidnapping them for ransom; and James Roane, Jr., who participated in the murder of 11 people as a drug dealer in Richmond, Virginia.
The kids in this picture are Luis Julian (4) and Luis Damian (3) Escobedo. They were shot 10 times at point-blank range by 2 drug dealers.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) December 23, 2024
Joe Biden just commuted the sentences of their killers. pic.twitter.com/HJS3ewI6w8
"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," Biden stated. "In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Biden lowered each of the 37 sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole; however, he did not say why he specifically felt that the original punishments were unjust.
The three inmates remaining on federal death row who did not receive a commutation were Tree of Life Synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof.
"These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," Biden explained.
In a press release, the White House touted that Biden has "issued more commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms." Earlier this month, Biden announced clemency for about 1,500 Americans, the most ever in a single day.
Biden's 11th-hour commutations were not well-received.
An Ohio-based chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) condemned the commutation for cop killer Daryl Lawrence, who murdered Columbus police officer Bryan Hurst on January 6, 2005, during an attempted bank robbery.
"The murder of Officer Hurst was not only an attack on one officer but an assault on the principles of law and order that protect our communities," the FOP branch reacted. "The commutation of Lawrence's sentence disregards the gravity of his crime and diminishes accountability for those who target the brave men and women who serve in uniform."