Biden changed 37 federal death sentences to life in prison. Victims and families are sharing a range of emotions

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

43% : One inmate's attorney expresses thanks -- and his remorseTwo of the men whose sentences were commuted were Norris Holder and Billie Jerome Allen, on death row for opening fire with assault rifles during a 1997 bank robbery in St. Louis, killing a guard, 46-year-old Richard Heflin.
40% : Three inmates will remain on federal death row: Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers.
40% : "Decision to leave Roof on death row met with conflicting emotionsThere has always been a broad range of opinions on what punishment Roof should face from the families of the nine people killed and the survivors of the massacre at the Mother Emanuel AME Church.
39% : "I need the President to understand that when you put a killer on death row, you also put their victims' families in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until there is an execution before we can begin to heal," Richer said in a statement.
38% : Boston bombing victims react to Tsarnaev death sentenceRicher, a board member of Death Penalty Action, which seeks to abolish capital punishment, was driven to tears by conflicting emotions during a Zoom news conference Monday.
34% : "Norris' case exemplifies the racial bias and arbitrariness that led the President to commute federal death sentences," Cohen said.
28% : READ MORE: Biden commutes sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates, gives life in prisonThree inmates will remain on federal death row: Dylann Roof, convicted of the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; the 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.
23% : "These three racists and terrorists who have been left on death row came to their crimes from political motivations.
22% : Supporters of Donald Trump, a vocal advocate of expanding capital punishment, criticized the move as an assault to common decency just weeks before the president-elect takes office.Victims' families and former colleagues share relief and angerDonnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was commuted, said the execution of "the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace.
19% : "But the Rev. Sharon Richer, who was Tywanza Sanders' cousin and whose mother, Ethel Lance, was killed, criticized Biden for not sparing Roof and clearing out all of death row.
18% : When Donald Trump gets to execute them what will really be happening is they will be given a global platform for their agenda of hatred," Bonowitz said.

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