Relief, Defiance, Anger: Families and Advocates React to Biden's Death Row Commutations

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Posted on 12/23/2024 3:05:57 PM PST by nickcarraway

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.

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Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner, Bryan Hurst, was killed by an inmate 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. But Hurst’s widow, Marissa Gibson, called Biden's commutation distressing and a "complete dismissal and undermining of the federal justice system,” in a statement to The Columbus Dispatch.

Heather Turner, whose mother, Donna Major, was killed in a 2017 South Carolina bank robbery, called the commutation of the killer's sentence a “clear gross abuse of power” in a Facebook post, adding the weeks she spent in court with the hope of justice “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.”

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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.

(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...

1 posted on 12/23/2024 3:05:57 PM PST by nickcarraway

To: nickcarraway

2 posted on 12/23/2024 3:06:39 PM PST by nickcarraway

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