COLUMBIA, S.C. – Families of victims and others impacted by crimes that resulted in federal death row convictions experienced a mix of emotions on Monday following President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of numerous individuals.
Biden changed the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. These inmates were involved in crimes such as the killings of police officers, military personnel, federal prisoners, and guards, as well as deadly robberies and drug deals.
However, three inmates will not have their sentences commuted and will remain on federal death row. They are Dylann Roof, who was found guilty of the racially motivated murders of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who committed the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history by killing 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.
Opponents of the death penalty lauded Biden for a decision they’d long sought. Supporters of Donald Trump, a vocal advocate of expanding capital punishment, criticized the move as an assault to common decency just weeks before the president-elect takes office.
Victims’ families and former colleagues share relief and anger
Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was commuted, said the execution of “the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.”
“The president has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement also issued 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 bank robbery in South Carolina in 2017, called Biden’s commutation of the killer’s sentence a “clear gross abuse of power” in a Facebook post, adding that the weeks she spent sitting in court with the hope of justice were now “just a waste of time.”
“At no point did the president consider the victims,” Turner wrote. “He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.”
Decision to leave Roof on death row met with conflicting emotions
There has always been a broad range of opinions on what punishment Roof should face from the families of the nine people killed and the survivors of the massacre at the Mother Emanuel AME Church. Many forgave him, but they can’t forget and their forgiveness doesn’t mean they don’t want to see him put to death for what he did.
Felicia Sanders survived the shooting shielding her granddaughter while watching Roof kill her son, Tywanza, and her aunt, Susie Jackson. Sanders brought her bullet-torn bloodstained Bible to his sentencing and said then she can’t even close her eyes to pray because Roof started firing during the closing prayer of Bible study that night.
In a text message to her lawyer, Andy Savage, Sanders called Biden’s decision to not 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 simmering white nationalism in the country means he is the kind of dangerous and evil person the death penalty is intended for.
“This was a crime against a race of people,” Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.”
But the Rev. Sharon Richer, who was Tywanza Sanders’ cousin and whose mother, Ethel Lance, was killed, criticized Biden for not sparing Roof and clearing out all of death row. She said every time Roof’s case comes up through numerous appeals it is like reliving the massacre all over again.
“I need the President to understand that when you put a killer on death row, you also put their victims’ families in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until there is an execution before we can begin to heal,” Richer said in a statement.
Richer, a board member of Death Penalty Action, which seeks to abolish capital punishment, was driven to tears by conflicting emotions during a Zoom news conference Monday.
“The families are left to be hostages for the years and years of appeals that are to come,” Richer said. “I’ve got to stay away from the news today. I’ve got to turn the TV off — because whose face am I going to see?”
Biden is giving more attention to the three inmates he chose not to spare, something they all wanted as a part of what drove them to kill, said Abraham Bonowitz, Death Penalty Action’s executive director.
“These three racists and terrorists who have been left on death row came to their crimes from political motivations. When Donald Trump gets to execute them what will really be happening is they will be given a global platform for their agenda of hatred,” Bonowitz said.
One inmate’s attorney expresses thanks — and his remorse
Two of the men whose sentences were commuted were Norris Holder and Billie Jerome Allen, on death row for opening fire with assault rifles during a 1997 bank robbery in St. Louis, killing a guard, 46-year-old Richard Heflin.
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 exemplifies 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 measure of 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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