Joe Biden’s inconsistent commutations: Hate is a crime, but apparently not for all | Opinion
Trying to discern a principle behind President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 notorious killers to life in prison, but not three other multiple murderers is hard.
It is not that the death penalty is wrong or that its use targets minorities regardless of the severity of their offenses, and it is not because we aren’t sure of the guilt of those we’d use the machinery of law enforcement to kill.
If it was one of these principles, Biden would not have left these three men on death row, among them Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Muslim convicted of the Boston Marathon bombing. He is widely considered to be the junior partner in the killing who would not have been sentenced to death if his brother, the mastermind of the plot, did not die before he could be arrested.
In a White House statement, Biden said the commutations are “consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
To Biden, terrorism is what justifies Tsarnaev’s continued death sentence, while hate is what justifies the planned state killing of two more: Dylann Roof, the murderer of nine innocents praying in a Black church, and Robert Bowers, who targeted a synagogue in his antisemitic murder spree that left 11 Jewish people dead.
The death penalty in Biden’s view should not be about body count or the vileness of your actions, but rather what we think of your motives. Consider the following commutations of sentences:
The aptly-named Philadelphia drug dealer Kaboni Savage was convicted of personally killing or ordering the death of 12 people. Protecting your drug racket that preys mostly on Black people is more acceptable than killing nine because they are Black.
Former police officer Len Davis ordered the killing of a woman who had the temerity to file a complaint against him with the New Orleans Police Department. There is nothing more destructive of American society than a police officer killing a Black woman because she stands up for her rights. The killing of innocent Black people by racist cops is about the oldest form of terrorism you’ll find in America.
But worse than that is the fact that somehow killing Black and Jewish people is hateful according to the logic of Biden’s commutations, but sexually targeting women or killing people because of their immigration status doesn’t count as hate, like these other commuted sentences to life in prison:
Iouri Mikhel killed five immigrants from Eastern Europe after holding them for ransom. In some cases he killed them anyway even after receiving the ransom he demanded. If that’s not hate, I don’t know what is.
Richard Allen Jackson was found guilty of kidnapping, raping and then killing a 20-something jogger. He didn’t do it because he liked women. Like Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted and then killed two little girls, his crimes were born of a deep-seated hatred of the fairer sex.
Biden’s White House statement says, “ I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.” That would be fine with me. If Biden had commuted the sentences of all the scum who sit on death row and left them to rot in prison for life, I could have respected his decision. I have my own doubts about the justice of our death penalty system.
But that is not what he did. He kept the death penalty for the worst of the worst as he defined it but used completely irrational standards to show mercy to despicable hateful killers. Women and immigrants deserve the same protection from predatory hate that Black and Jewish people do. Biden should be ashamed of his double standard.
This story was originally published December 23, 2024 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Joe Biden’s inconsistent commutations: Hate is a crime, but apparently not for all | Opinion."
