It is impossible to think of a presidential action that would match the damage done to law and order by President Joe Biden’s refusal to enforce immigration laws at the southern border. But Biden nevertheless took a shot at it and certainly further undermined public safety when he selectively commuted the death sentences of 37 convicted murderers last week.
A coherent and principled policy of not using the death penalty at the federal level could be logically and morally defended, but that is not what Biden did. While sparing the lives of some of the most sadistic and evil rapists and murderers, the president affirmed the death sentences of three men because, in the words of the White House statement, Biden believes the death penalty is still justified “in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
PROGRESSIVES FUME THAT BIDEN SHOULD USE PARDONS TO END MASS INCARCERATION, NOT BAIL OUT SON
No explanation was given as to why the taking of human life was justified as punishment in those cases but not in others. The only plausible explanation is political calculation, which would fit the rest of Biden’s historical flip-flopping on this issue and so many others.
For decades, Biden adamantly advocated the death penalty as part of the showy and shallow tough-on-crime image he tried to foster with his support of the 1994 crime bill. It was not until after then-President Donald Trump restarted executions of federal inmates on death row in his first term that Biden decided to reverse himself on the issue, promising a moratorium on executions if he was elected president. Biden’s determination to do the opposite of whatever Trump did was clearly the deciding factor. His ethics have always varied according to circumstance rather than on principle, as this makes plain.
While Biden followed through on his promise not to execute death row inmates, his Justice Department still sought the death penalty in selected cases, including for a man convicted of killing ten people in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and more recently for the assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Why these two men deserve the death penalty, but not Thomas Sanders, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl, killed her mother in front of her, and then slit her throat, is inexplicable other than as a cynical distinction without conscience or merit.
Perhaps worse than the commutations themselves was the blatant disregard for Justice Department policy in carrying them out. The Crime Victims’ Right Act of 2004 obliges the Office of the Pardon Attorney to meet before commutation with and listen to the family or families of any victim for whose killing an inmate has been sentenced to death. These required meetings did not take place with the families of the victims of the 37 inmates whose lives were spared by Biden. He was in a rush. He couldn’t be bothered to do what the law requires. This is typical of our current president, one of the worst and most cynical ever to sit in the Oval Office.
“The pain and trauma we have endured over the last 7 years has been indescribable,” wrote the daughter of one of murder victims, adding, “at no point did the president consider the victims. Our government is a joke. Joe Biden’s decision is a clear gross abuse of power. He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.”
The father of another victim conferred: “It’s a disappointment and a loss of confidence in the government to do something like this.” Yet another father said, “I think President Biden offered a Christmas gift to the perpetrators of murder, but he offered only pain to the victims, the families of the victims.”
This was, of course, not the first time Biden has disrespected the families of victims. It was reported only last week that he made the families of the 13 service men and women who died in Afghanistan wait on the runway for three hours while he napped on Air Force One.
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That last point only underlines perhaps the most troubling part of these commutations: which is that Biden is mentally unfit to be making these decisions. Commutations cannot be unmade by the next president. The families that were expecting closure with the ultimate punishment inflicted on the perpetrators will now not get it. And it’s all because a feeble and selfish old man who barely knows who he is or what he is doing is being controlled by a far-left staff with a political agenda not shared by the public.
Jan. 20 can’t come fast enough.