By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2024-12-23 23:36:05 | Updated at 2024-12-24 14:09:10
14 hours ago
President Biden needs to explain his death-sentence commutations “to our faces,” says the furious brother of a young female naval officer murdered by one of the “despicable’’ clemency recipients.
“I’d rather see it go back to the way it was, where he was sentenced to death,” said Alex Snell, 42, of Jorge Avila-Torrez, who fatally strangled Snell’s 20-year-old sister, Amanda Snell, in her Arlington, Va., barracks in July 2009.
“He should have gotten that penalty,” Snell told The Post of the killer — who also sexually assaulted and murdered two little girls and raped a grad student.
In a sweeping act of clemency, Biden lowered the death-penalty sentences of 37 of the feds’ 40 current death-row inmates to life in prison without parole.
Snell said he was in “disbelief” when he learned Biden had rubbed salt in the wound of grieving families by issuing the commutations two days before Christmas — and that he’s “angry that justice is not being served.
“Why does he need to get special treatment? He’s just going to risk other people,” Snell said of Avila-Torrez.
“What justification does [Biden] have for doing this? I want to have him explain to us, to our faces, why he chose to give them mercy when they didn’t give other people mercy.”
The savagery of Avila-Torrez’s crimes stand out even among the roster of some of the nation’s worst offenders.
In addition to murdering Amanda Snell, in May 2005, Avila-Torrez sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls — Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9 — who had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood in a suburb north of Chicago.
Hobb’s father, Jerry Hobbs, who has since died, was falsely imprisoned for five years awaiting trial before Avila-Torrez was determined to be Laura’s actual killer.
Avila-Torrez’s trail of carnage didn’t end until February 2010, when he kidnapped and raped a graduate student in Arlington, Va.
He drove that victim to a secluded area and strangled her with a scarf until she lost consciousness. She was found face-down in the snow and was aided by a passer-by, leading to Avila Torrez’s arrest.
While in jail, Avila-Torrez confessed to murdering Snell, who had lived in the same barracks — telling another inmate that he pounced on her while she was sleeping before strangling her with her computer’s cord, prosecutors said.
He then dragged her body across the room to a locker, where it was found two days later.
Snell’s brother said he’s concerned about the serial predator harming others while behind bars.
Nine of the death-row inmates granted clemency by Biden received their death sentences for murdering fellow inmates while behind bars on other raps.
One of the killers granted clemency by Biden murdered a prison guard with a hammer while serving a life sentence for murdering his own wife.
Biden also gave clemency to Thomas Sanders, who in 2010 kidnapped 12-year-old Lexis Roberts, shot her four times and cut her throat in Louisiana — days after Sanders murdered her mother on a road trip near the Grand Canyon.
Biden left three of the best-known killers on death row — declining to ease up on Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Pittsburgh synagogue mass-shooter Robert Bowers and racist Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof.
Snell said all he can figure is that Biden must have decided on the clemency because he’s “trying to appeal to some people who might see him in a better light because of it.”
Biden did not say why he considered the death sentences unjust in a brief written statement explaining the commutations.
“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.
“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. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
The White House did not respond to a Post request for comment Monday.
