6 VA Prisoners Among 37 Biden Spares From Federal Death Row

VIRGINIA — President Joe Biden on Monday spared the lives of all but three of the people awaiting execution on federal death row, including six men convicted of drug crimes and murder in Virginia.

The crimes include the Fairfax County murder of a young mother in her home, where the killer left her bloody body for her 1-year-old daughter to find. And a former Marine who killed two girls in Illinois was later convicted of killing a Naval officer in her Arlington barracks.

Biden’s action commutes their sentences to life imprisonment just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office.

Those whose lives were spared were convicted of killings that included slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as killings of guards and prisoners in federal facilities.

The Virginia convicts who had their sentences commuted are:

• Carlos David Caro: Sentenced in 2007 for the killing of a prisoner in a federal facility. According to court records, Caro is a long-time drug dealer and leader of the Texas Syndicate prison gang. In August 2003, Caro and another gang member stabbed a prisoner 29 times with homemade knives in a Louisiana. He was transferred to the high-security U.S. Penitentiary in Lee County, Virginia. On Dec. 17, 2003, Caro ate his cellmate's breakfast and when the man objected, Caro wrapped a wet towel around his neck and strangled him to death.
• Thomas Morocco Hager: Sentenced in 2007 for a drug-related killing. The Washington Times reported that Hager in 1993 fatally stabbed a young mother 82 times in a bathtub. The body of Barbara White, 19, was found bound and gagged in the bathtub of her Fairfax County apartment. Her daughter was not hurt, but the 1-year-old found her mother in the bathtub and left tiny, bloodstained footprints throughout the apartment.
• James H. Roane, Jr.: Sentenced in February 1993 for his participation in a series of drug-related killings. He was a co-defendant of Corey Johnson and Richard Tipton; prosecutors said all three men were mem­bers of an inner-city gang in Richmond.
• David Anthony Runyon: Sentenced in 2009 for his involvement in the death of a Naval officer in a murder-for-hire plot. The AP reported a Norfolk federal jury convicted Runyon in 2009 of shooting Cory Allen Voss five times outside an ATM. Authorities said the killing was orchestrated by Voss’ wife and her boyfriend and designed to look like a robbery gone bad.
• Richard Tipton: Sentenced in 1993 for his participation in a series of drug-related killings. He is a co-defendant of Corey Johnson and James H. Roane, Jr.
• Jorge Avila Torrez: Ex-Marine sentenced in 2014 for the killing of a fellow service member. The New York Post reported that 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.

It means just three federal inmates are still facing execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 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.

“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during Biden's term. But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden's statement said. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

He took a political jab at Trump, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executions. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.” He later promised to execute drug and human smugglers and even praised China's harsher treatment of drug peddlers. During his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.

There were 13 federal executions during Trump's first term, more than under any president in modern history.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.