Rational Reason: Oblivious
Death row pardons days before Christmas?
Rational Reason: December 26, 2024
I had planned to send out a Christmas Day Rational Reason but decided not to because (1) it’s the holiday and (2) I wanted more time to think through a confounding decision our absent and oblivious commander and chief made earlier this week. Here’s Wednesday’s post a day late.
President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison because, he said in a statement, he’s against the death penalty.
As expected, the families of death row inmates expressed relief and joy. The Justice Department, under Biden’s directive, placed a moratorium on executions, and President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to restart them.
Those whose family members were victimized were incredulous. Everyone who received a commuted sentence was convicted of murder.
The death penalty issue has been debated for centuries, so there’s no need to review those arguments here.
I have a different concern.
We’re not spending enough time on the backgrounds of the murderers and the moral question of whether they merited compassion.
The Times ran a list of the 37 and what they did to deserve the ultimate punishment. But the list doesn’t tell readers the extent of the crimes.
For example, Thomas Steven Sanders was convicted of the kidnapping and death of a 12-year-old girl, which is horrible enough. But the details are gut-wrenching. Sanders shot the pre-teen girl four times and slit her throat days after he killed her mother.
Former Marine Coro corporal Jorge Avila Torrez, the Times said, was sentenced to death in 2014 for killing a fellow service member. That undersells his crimes. He also admitted to sexually assaulting and stabbing to death two killing two girls, ages eight and nine, who had been out for a bike ride; and he was convicted in the kidnapping of one woman and the rape of another.
Other crimes of the Biden 37 are just as heinous but you get the drift. The conversation needs to quickly move from the support/outrage to a more simple query:
What do people who murder little girls deserve to have their sentences commuted?
As noted earlier this week, Biden has been largely absent and has already ceded many presidential duties to Trump. Presidents have the right to issue pardons. But it’s fair to wonder whether commuting the sentences of convicted and heinous criminals serves the public good, especially since a half-dozen on the Times list have been convicted of murdering fellow prisoners and a security guard.
Then, there’s the financial cost to taxpayers, who spend nearly $44K a year to house an inmate in a federal prison. Do the math. Brian Michael Council, 38, convicted of killing two bank employees, was one of the Biden 37. If he lives to the average age of 75, taxpayers will spend more than $1.6 million on his imprisonment, and that’s before any inflation.
Biden’s been checked out since he dropped out of the race. Now, he’s put the lives of inmates and guards at risk and cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
Biden says he did this because he’s morally opposed to the death penalty. But where’s the morality in ignoring the forever pain of the victims’ families and putting lives at risk?
Ray Marcano has more than 40 years of experience as a reporter, editor, executive, and leader. He’s worked for some of the country’s biggest brands, including CNN, ESPN’s Andcape, and USAToday. His award-winning column appears each Sunday in the Dayton (OH) Daily News, and he’s a frequent contributor to the Columbus (OH) Dispatch. He’s the former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, a two-time Pulitzer juror, and a Fulbright Fellow.
Ray also publishes the Bourbon Resource, a free monthly publication that features news, reviews, and analysis about the world of bourbon.
John Grisham and Jim McCloskey’s new book, Framed, recounts dozens of cases where Death Row prisoners were wrongly convicted, often at the hands of crooked cops and corrupt prosecutors. Since the 1970s, more than 200 people convicted of murder have been exonerated. Something to consider when trying to reason this out.