Two days before Christmas, in the waning days of his presidency, Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 out of 40 national captives to a life sentence. We can only initiate tormenting their act once we hear what they did. Many of them were to blame for the horrible murders of several people:
- Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, who had been riding their bike in their community in a district north of Chicago in 2005, were sexually assaulted and stabbed by Jorge Avila-Torrez. Four years later, he strangled naval commander Amanda Snell, 20, inside her garrison in Arlington, Virginia”. He later admitted to these acts. A month after that, he kidnapped, raped, and strangled a person in a remote region of northern Virginia, leaving her for useless by the side of a street. She survived and reported the offense to police, eventually leading to his arrest and faith.
- Anthony Battle, who was serving a life sentence for the 1987 murder of his wife, a US Marine, “murdered an Atlanta jail watch with a hammer in 1994.” Battle admitted that he wanted to kill the first watch he saw because he was “tired of being bossed round.” He showed no remorse. Three prison guards from the hospital testified at the trial of Battle because” all prisoners… believe there is nothing that can occur to them” and that Battle’s actions encouraged other prisoners to threaten team.
- Before she could speak in a 1997 murder circumstance against him, Marvin Gabrion slaughtered 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman. He handcuffed her, covered her eyes and mouth with duct tape, wrapped her in chains, weighted her down with practical stones, and threw her into a river dead. He also murdered Rachel’s 11-month-old daughter, whose body has never been found ( Gabrion denies that he murdered her ). If Gabrion’s location was merely revealed, the government agreed to drop the death sentence. ” Lawyers say Gabrion is also responsible for the deaths of three people who have been missing since about the time of Timmerman’s death: Robert Allen, a mentally handicapped person from Kent County, Wayne Davis, who reportedly witnessed the sexual abuse on Timmerman, and John Weeks, who reportedly lured Timmerman and her child to Gabrion before Timmerman’s death”.
- Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks in 2002 carjacked, kidnapped, and killed two girls, 44-year-old Alice Donovan of South Carolina and 19-year-old Samantha Burns of West Virginia, in the midst of a 17-day murder rampage after they escaped a county jail in northern Kentucky.
- Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas, Soviet-born immigrants, kidnapped five Russian and Georgian immigrants ( four men, one woman, all but one between the ages of 29 and 39, the other 58 ) over a four-month period starting in 2001. Through business offers, they enticed their victims. They paid more than$ 1 million in ransom, but they still strangled their victims and dumped their bodies in a reservoir close to Yosemite National Park. Since being imprisoned, Mikhel and Kadamovas have hatched some exit strategies.
- Thomas Sanders in 2010 killed a girl and her 12-year-old child. Sanders ( 53 ) was dating Suellen Roberts, 31. He gave her and her child Lexis a trip to a wildlife garden close to the Grand Canyon that they had invited to attend. ” As they were returning to Nevada, Sanders pulled off Interstate 40 … and shot Suellen Roberts in the mind” and kidnapped Lexis Roberts. Before killing Lexis Roberts in a forested area of Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, Sanders traveled extensively across the country for several weeks. … Smith shot Lexis four days, cut her neck, and left her body in the woods. The jury was given a observed confession by Sanders, who admitted killing the mother and daughter, at trial.
- Alejandro Umaña in 2007 fatally shot two boys, Ruben Garcia Salinas and Manuel Garcia Salinas, in a North Carolina cafe. When he and two additional customers who did not belong to the crew exchanged words, Umana, a part of a group, was having dinner at a Greensboro cafe. The two people were shot in the restaurant by Umana, according to the prosecution.
- Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez in 2006 stopped a vehicle on the Florida Turnpike and shot to death an overall home: Jose Luis Escobedo and his wife Yessica along with their children, Luis Julian, 4, and Luis Damian, 3, both of whom died in their mother’s arms. Their bodies were found in the lawn alongside Florida’s Turnpike. The killings were motivated by Jose’s involvement in a drug-debt.
- Edward Fields, a former Oklahoma state prison watch, in 2003 killed a married couple, Charles and Shirley Chick, at a park in Ouachita National Forest just for the game of it. He” shot the couple with a rifle while scouting the couple at the park in a homemade rifle match.”
- Kaboni Savage, a Philadelphia drug trader, was convicted of killing or ordering the incidents of 12 people, including four children.
- Two crew members in Richmond, Virginia, were involved in a series of 11 drug-related killings that happened in a period of 45 times in 1992. James Roane was convicted in three of those deaths, Richard Tipton of six deaths.
- Julius Robinson, a general drug dealer operating in five state, in 1998-99 murdered two gentlemen, Johnny Lee Shelton and Juan Reyes, and was also implicated in the death of a second person, Rudolfo Resendez. Shelton was killed by Robinson as a result of a misidentification. Juan Reyes,” never the expected specific”, “was shot to death at close range on the road in front of his home”.
- Aquilia Marcivicci Barnette in 1998 murdered two persons, his ex-girlfriend and another person, in a burglary.
- Brandon Council in 2017 murdered two banks people, a banker and a bank director, during the course of a bank robbery in South Carolina.
Prisoners Murder Another Detainees
Add these to the one cited below, who murdered a jail guard, and nine others who had received life sentences that Biden had commuted to. The risk of murder for prisoners who death in prison serves as a deterrent to murder in prison, in addition to upholding social justice. Then, prisoners who have been sentenced to death for life have nothing to worry about. Some of the people who committed murder while in captivity were also held on charges of previous murder:
- For the 1989 death he committed, Shannon Agofsky previously served a life sentence. He had kidnapped a lender president, Dan Short, forced him to open his Missouri banks, stole$ 71, 000, drove him to Oklahoma, tied him” to a cement-weighted head, and threw him in a river” alive. While in jail in 2001, he beat to dying 37-year-old Luther Plant, an inmate at a federal prison in Texas.
- Joseph Ebron, who was in jail for two previous murders, in 2005 helped “in the stabbing death of colleague criminal Keith Davis at a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas. While another prisoner stabbed Davis 106 days, Ebron held him. That prisoner later committed suicide.
The first murder committed by another captives was:
- When Mark Snarr and Edgar Garcia” slipped from their side restrictions, pulled out bread knives, and stabbed two adjustment officers,” they were being transported to their cells in a national Texas jail. They removed the battery keys from a policeman’s belt and locked Gabriel Rhone’s cell. They stabbed Rhone over 50 days, killing him.
- Charles Hall and Wesley Coonce in 2010 murdered brother criminal Victor Castro-Rodriguez. Castro-Rodriguez was the subject of the duo’s attack because he had recently intervened to stop another Bureau of Prisons staff from attacking another prisoner. Coonce was now serving a life sentence for a woman’s murder and theft. Hall was serving his sentence for threatening a federal attorney and determine.
- Christopher Cramer and Ricky Fackrell , stabbed to death fellow criminal Leo Johns. All three of them were members of a ancient white supremacy organization called” Men of the Aryan Culture.” Although they claimed their goal was to punish Johns for breaking their party’s prohibitions on alcohol and gambling, things got stale. Both men had previously been convicted of robbery and other violent crimes, and they had assaulted other prisoners ( Fackrell was later charged with killing another prisoner ).
- Carlos Caro, in jail on a 30-year word for drug dealing, in 2003 strangled his flatmate, Robert Sandoval, to death with a wet bathroom handkerchief. Caro, a part of the Texas Syndicate prison group, said that his purpose for murdering Sandoval was that Sandoval ate Caro’s meal. Prior to this, Carlos had stabbed a foe gang member 29 days.
Heinous Murders Among Murderers Outside of Jail
In terrible individual murder cases, others who received life sentences were involved:
- Richard Jackson in 1994 kidnapped, raped, and murdered 22-year-old Karen Styles when she was going for a run in Asheville, North Carolina. A hunter discovered her half unclothed system duct-taped to a tree and a headshot wound to the head. Jackson afterwards admitted guilt.
- Daryl Lawrence in 2005″ shot and killed Columbus] Ohio] police agent Bryan Hurst during an attempted banks assault”. This was his third institution heist in less than a year. When Lawrence entered with a gun and killed the commander during an exchange of gunfire, Hurst, 33, “was on particular work at the Fifth Third Bank.” Lawrence confessed to his acts.
- Thomas Hager in 1993 was one of three people who entered the apartment of 19-year-old one daughter, Barbara White, and” stabbed her 82 days. Hager’s accomplices claimed they worked for him, a crack cocaine seller at the time, and that they received life sentences after speaking out against him.
- Meier Brown, in the course of attempting to steal three funds purchases totaling$ 1175 at a post office in Fleming, Georgia, in 2002, fatally stabbed groomer Sallie Gaglia ten times but that she couldn’t recognize him, therefore stole her pocket. Brown confessed to his crime.
- In 1998, Billie Jerome Allen and Norris Holder were both sentenced to prison for a St. Louis bank armed robbery that resulted in the death of security guard Richard Heflin. What convinced the jury to vote for a death sentence was that “after] Heflin ] had already been shot and wounded, Allen stood over Mr. Heflin with an assault rifle and shot him again, execution-style”. Holder’s involvement in the crime is without question. However, some have argued that Allen’s conviction is a case of mistaken identity ( see , Amnesty International,  , Prisons and Justice Initiative,  , www. freebillieallen.com, a Jan. 14 op-ed in , The Nation, and a Jan. 16 op-ed by Allen himself in , Newsweek ). But the evidence for Allen’s involvement appears , strong.
- David Runyon, an army veteran, in 2007 shot five times and killed Cory Voss, a naval ensign, in a murder-for-hire plot staged by Voss ‘ wife Catherina and her boyfriend ( both of whom got life sentences ).
Murdering Witnesses
Several people were on death row for allegedly abducting a witness.
- Joyce Brannon, a 53-year-old former nurse who lived in the basement of the church where she served as a secretary, shot six times and killed the one patient who he could not stop him from testifying against him. Ronaldo Mikos, a Chicago foot doctor, defrauded Medicare of$ 1.8 million for foot surgeries he had never performed. Mikkos acknowledged the crime but refuted the murder. His guilt was demonstrated convincingly by circumstantial evidence.  ,
- Len Davis, a corrupt New Orleans police officer, in 1994 arranged with a drug dealer, Paul Hardy, to have Kim Groves killed for filing a complaint of police brutality against him. Davis and Groves had witnessed the beating and had mistakenly believed the young man to be a suspect in the shooting of a police officer ( both Davis and Groves were black ). As part of a sting operation against Davis and other police officers for extorting money from cocaine dealers in exchange for protection, Davis was unaware that the FBI was wiretapping Davis ‘ phone. The phone surveillance revealed Davis’s requests to Hardy. Groves was killed by a single shot to the head fired by Hardy less than a day after filing her complaint against Davis.
- Rejon Taylor with the help of two accomplices in 2003 robbed, carjacked, kidnapped, and murdered Atlanta restaurant owner Guy Luck. From 2001 to 2003 they engineered a scheme of robbing the mailboxes of rich Atlanta homeowners, including Luck. They decided to return to Luck’s home to ransack it for valuables. In addition to this, Taylor found a document that indicated Luck planned to testify against Taylor. So they forced Luck to drive Taylor from Atlanta to rural Tennessee in his own van. In the car, Taylor shot Luck three times, including once in the mouth, killing him.
The Three Whose Death Sentences Biden Never Committed and Why
Given that there were three people whose death sentences he did not commute, Biden can’t claim complete opposition to the death penalty. According to a press release from the White House, Biden “believes that America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, excluding in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.” Hence, he did not commute the death sentences of:
- Robert Bowers, the anti-Semitic murderer of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
- Dylann Roof, the white-supremacist murderer of nine persons at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
- The Islamic terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who planted bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line, inflicted the deaths of three people and injured 264 others, then critically injured one police officer and critically injured another.
The issue then becomes whether the death penalty is appropriate in the case of a heinous murder rather than what qualifies as “heinous.”
Conclusion
Biden should spout a sense of moral outrage by converting nearly all federal death sentences to life sentences for heinous murderers. This moral outrage is not a bloody desire for vengeance but a belief in justice for the value and dignity of innocent life. The innocent life of a person who was created in God’s image must be forfeited, as required by Genesis 9: 6 (especially in heinous murders like those above ).
The failure of attempts to refute the death penalty for particularly heinous murders is a failure. Yes, innocent people may be sentenced to death, but none of the above circumstances seem to fit that category. Yes, racial bias may still occasionally come up in person, but just as a justly applied capital sentence would apply if someone else faced the same fate and received only a life sentence. Some people wonder if the death penalty’s threat has a deterrent effect. However, it seems as though a threat to some prisoners who have nothing else to lose from violent prison conditions. It can also be used to coax criminals into telling them where a body has been hidden. Ultimately, though, deterrence and recovery of the deceased are secondary benefits. The value of innocent human life and the conveyance of justice are society’s main advantages.
Robert A. J. Gagnon is a visiting scholar at Wesley Biblical Seminary and the author of” The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics”.
