President Biden helped Christmas come early for 37 men on federal death row when he commuted their sentences to life without parole, many of them put there for the most heinous crimes.
If anyone ever qualified for dying on the federal government’s timetable, it was Kaboni Savage of Philadelphia.
Savage, a former boxer, was a major drug trafficker in Philadelphia from 1998 to 2004. He was condemned to die for the deaths of 12 people, including four children.
While awaiting trial in prison in isolation in 2004, Savage ordered the firebombing of the home of the family of a drug-dealing associate who was cooperating with the FBI.
Savage’s sister showed a hitman the location of the family’s rowhouse. The hitman and a partner, both members of Savage’s drug gang, threw two full cans of gasoline with a lit cloth fuse into the home around 5 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2004.
Burned alive in the blaze were the mother of the FBI’s witness; her 15-month-old son; three other children ages 10, 12 and 15; and the mother of the 10-year-old girl. A top city police official described Savage’s actions as “pure evil.”
SEE ALSO: Biden commutes sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row
When authorities allowed the cooperating witness out of jail to attend the funeral of his family members, Savage uttered a “joke” that the FBI caught on tape in prison.
“They should stop off and get him some barbecue sauce … pour it on them burnt bitches,” Savage said.
On Monday, critics cited Savage’s case as one of the most egregious among the commutations issued by Mr. Biden. Savage will now serve life in federal prison without the possibility of parole.
“A jury sentenced Savage to 13 death sentences, but Joe Biden thinks he knows better,” Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, said on X.
Laura Loomer, a conservative provocateur and ally of President-elect Donald Trump, asked, “Why is Joe Biden commuting the death sentences of people who murdered innocent children?”
Others on the list of commuted sentences also committed crimes against children. Thomas Sanders, a Las Vegas man, was convicted of the 2010 kidnapping and shooting of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts in Louisiana. He shot her four times, cut her throat and left her body in the woods. All this after she watched him shoot her mother in the head.
Jorge Avila-Torrez, an Illinois man, sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two young girls, Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, in 2005. He joined the Marines soon after and then attacked and strangled to death 20-year-old naval officer Amanda Snell in her barracks in Arlington, Virginia.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for their victims of their despicable acts and ache for all families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “But guided by conscience and my experience … I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Mr. Biden did not commute the death row sentence for three inmates: Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in 2018 during a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dylann Roof, who killed nine black parishioners in a racist attack on the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston Massacre bomber.
He did not grant those three killers clemency because their actions were “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
The Trump team bashed Mr. Biden’s commutations, saying they “are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.”
“President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Trump promised to resume federal executions, something Mr. Biden halted when he took over the White House in 2020.
There were mixed feelings from the families of the victims on Mr. Biden’s decision.
Donnie Oliviero, a retired police officer from Columbus, Ohio, whose partner, Byran Hurst, was killed by death row inmate Daryl Lawrence during a 2005 robbery, welcomed the decision.
“Putting to death the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace,” he said in a statement. “The president has done what is right here and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”
But Heather Turner, whose mother, Donna Major, was killed in a South Carolina bank robbery in 2017, called Mr. Biden’s decision a “clear gross abuse of power.”
“At no point did the president consider the victims,” Turner wrote on social media. “He and his supporters have blood on their hands.”
Mr. Biden is no stranger to pardons. He issued a blanket pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, a move that was criticized by Republicans and Democrats.
He also commuted the sentence of nearly 1,500 people earlier this month who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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