Two days before Christmas, in the waning days of his presidency, Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 out of 40 federal prisoners to a life sentence. Only by hearing what they had done can we begin to grapple with their offense. Many of them were responsible for gruesome murders of multiple persons:
- Jorge Avila-Torrez “sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls — Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9 — who had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood in a suburb north of Chicago in 2005. Four years later, he strangled naval officer Amanda Snell, 20, inside her barrack in Arlington, Virginia.” He subsequently admitted to these crimes. A year after that, he kidnapped, raped, and strangled a woman in a secluded area of northern Virginia, leaving her for dead by the side of a road. She survived and reported the crime to police, finally…
