Victims’ friends and family members condemned President Joe Biden’s decision Monday to commute the death sentences of criminals who murdered their loved ones.
Biden granted clemency to 37 men on death row convicted for brutal murders, including of children, reclassifying their sentences to life without parole.
Kathleen Zellner, an attorney who represented a father whose daughter was murdered by a criminal on death row, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Biden’s decision was “cruel.”
“How dare President Biden commute the death sentence of Jorge Aviia-Torrez who viciously sexually assaulted and killed my client, Jerry Hobbs’, 8 year old daughter Laura, her 9 year old best friend Krystal Tobias and 4 years later 20 year old Amanda Snell, a naval officer,” Zellner said in a statement to the DCNF.
Zellner represented Hobbs in a civil rights lawsuit against local authorities who wrongly accused him of murdering his own daughter and her friend. Hobbs was kept behind bars for five years before he was exonerated by DNA evidence revealing Torrez was the perpetrator.
“President Biden never reached out to Mr. Hobbs or his family to ask their opinion about commuting Torrez sentences,” Zellner continued. “This is a callous, cruel action by President Biden that reflects how out of touch he is with the American public. There is no justifiable reason for this heartless decision that was carried out recklessly and for the President’s own political agenda against the incoming administration.”
I am commuting the sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole.
This action is consistent with my Administration’s moratorium on federal executions, except for cases involving terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder. pic.twitter.com/Obxfytxxbb
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 23, 2024
In 2005, death row inmate Daryl Lawrence killed Ohio police officer Bryan Hurst. Hurst’s widow, Marissa Gibson, said Monday that Biden’s decision to commute his sentence is a “complete dismissal” of the justice system.
“While this is truly distressing news on a personal level for my family, it also feels like a complete dismissal and undermining of the federal justice system,” Gibson told The Columbus Dispatch. “Lawrence’s sentence was imposed by a jury, and it should be upheld as such.”
Columbus, Ohio’s Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) chapter likewise hammered Biden’s decision, calling it an “inexcusable affront to the memory of Officer Bryan Hurst and the law enforcement community as a whole.”
Heather Turner, whose mother and coworker were murdered by a criminal Biden granted clemency, called the decision a “gross abuse of power.”
“At no point did the president consider the victims,” Turner wrote on Facebook. “Actually, when requesting a formal in person meeting with the federal pardon attorney, we were denied.”
In a statement, the City of Conway, South Carolina said that commuting the sentences of three individuals convicted for murdering residents has only served “to reopen old wounds.”
“The federal court system properly weighed the evidence, ruled on each submission under the backdrop of its constitutional relevance and admissibility, and an impartial jury deliberated and rendered a verdict in keeping with the rule of law,” the city wrote, according to WMBF News.
Earlier this month, Biden commuted sentences for nearly 1,500 individuals, including crack dealers, cartel leaders, notorious fraudsters and officials convicted for corruption. Biden also extended a broad pardon to his son after repeatedly stating he would not.
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