Relief, defiance, anger: Families and advocates react to Biden's death row commutations
Victims’ families and others affected by crimes that resulted in federal death row convictions are sharing a range of emotions, from relief to anger, after President Joe Biden commuted dozens of the sentences
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Victims' families and others affected by crimes that resulted in federal death row convictions shared a range of emotions on Monday, from relief to anger, after President Joe Biden commuted dozens of the sentences.
Biden converted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The inmates include people convicted in the slayings of police and military officers, as well as federal prisoners and guards. Others were involved in deadly robberies and drug deals.
Three inmates will remain on federal death row: Dylann Roof, convicted of the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; the 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.
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 weeks before the president-elect takes office.
