EDITORIAL: Heinous killers get reprieve from lame-duck president

Brandon Michael Council killed two innocent bank employees in 2017 as he robbed a South Carolina financial institution. One of the victims, a 36-year-old woman, was cowering under a desk when he shot her twice, once in the head.

Len Davis was a New Orleans police officer who, according to Longreads, “earned a fearsome reputation in and around a public housing complex … for helping drug dealers move product and cover up violent crimes.” During an internal affairs investigation into his nefarious deeds, Davis ordered a hit man to execute a single mother who filed a complaint against him.

Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya executed a husband, wife and two young children in 2006 in retaliation for a drug dispute. They stopped the family vehicle on a Florida turnpike, shot everyone inside and left them to die on the side of the road.

These are just a handful of the beneficiaries of President Joe Biden’s latest middle finger to the American people. On Monday, Mr. Biden announced he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 federal inmates on death row. The men will now serve life in prison without parole. Mr. Biden’s leniency grants these vicious murderers something their many victims will never know. Monday was a good day to be a killer.

We can debate whether the death penalty is an appropriate punishment in this day and age. There are principled arguments on either side. But opponents have so far failed to sway Congress on the issue despite making inroads with a number of states. Rather than continue to make their case in the legislative arena and with voters, they now applaud the president’s end-run around the judicial system.

Mr. Biden’s move reeks of cynicism and political cowardice. He’s had nearly four years to take such action, but failed to do so. Only after his chosen successor was roundly trounced at the polls does he step up to stake out his moral high ground. If he truly believes this was the right thing to do, why did he wait until he was forced into retirement?

“Freed from the will of the people,” observed Democratic pollster Mark Penn, “Biden in effect nullifies our will and our laws not by pardoning worthy individuals wrongly convicted but instead commuting the sentences of our worst miscreants.” He went on to note that those pardoned “include some of the most heinous of double and triple murderers.”

Progressives fret over what Donald Trump will do when he re-enters the White House. The rest of the nation worries about what more the doddering Mr. Biden will do over the next four weeks to further tarnish his diminishing legacy.