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Following President Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row, Sen. Joe ManchinIW.Va., called the clemency granted to two of the individuals “horribly wrong and insulting.”
In all 37 cases, Biden commuted the sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Manchin, a Democrat-turned-independent senator who will soon leave office, said he felt a responsibility to speak on behalf of the parents of Samantha Burns, who was killed in 2002 at the age of 19, according to reports.
TRUMP PLEDGES TO RETURN FEDERAL EXECUTIONS AFTER BIDEN COMMUNICATES DEATH SENTENCES TO 37 INMATES
Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., speaks during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the Special Diabetes Program on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 11, 2023. (Jemal Comtessa/Getty Images for JDRF)
“After speaking with the parents of Samantha Burns, I feel it is my duty to speak on their behalf and say that President Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences of the two men convicted of her brutal murder is horribly wrong and insulting “, the lawmaker declared. a statement published in X.
“Especially since Samantha’s family wrote letters to President Biden and the Department of Justice, asking them not to do this, but their concerns were not heard. I can’t imagine the pain that Kandi and John Burns are reliving and dealing during the holiday season,” Manchin continued. “As a United States Senator and father, I want to express my deepest sympathy for her continued suffering. Please know that Samantha will forever be in our prayers.”
Brandon Basham is pictured after escaping from the Hopkins County Jail in Madisonville, Kentucky on November 4, 2002. He went on an interstate crime spree with fellow fugitive Chadrick Fulks that included murder of two women (Ashland Police Department/Getty Images)
The two men linked to the young woman’s death escaped from prison and went on a crime spree in 2002, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
“On November 4, 2002, cellmates Chadrick Fulks and Brandon Basham escaped from a Kentucky County Detention Center” and “launched a seventeen-day, zig-zagging crime spree by several states,” according to the court, which noted that the men “admitted to killing Burns and pleaded guilty to carjacking causing death in the Southern District of West Virginia.”
Chadrick Fulks is escorted by U.S. Marshals out of the federal courthouse in Huntington, West Virginia, on April 12, 2005, following a carjacking charge that led to the death of Marshall University student Samantha Burns, use of a firearm to commit a crime. and interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle. (AP Photo/The Herald-Dispatch, Randy Snyder)
In a fiery Christmas Day post on Truth Social, president-elect trump told the 37 individuals who escaped capital punishment, “GO TO HELL!”
In a statement about commutations, President Biden he said: “I condemn these killers, I grieve for the victims of their despicable acts and I grieve for all the families who have suffered an unimaginable and irreparable loss.”
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President Biden speaks at the Department of Labor in Washington, DC on December 16. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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But he also said he is “more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
“These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” Biden said.
