Within minutes of her swearing in as the new attorney general, Pam Bondi declared her intention to reverse the commutations of 37 federal death sentences by former President Joe Biden. She announced her plan to hold a forum for the families of the victims of those convicted killers so that they can express their pain.
Joe Biden was well within his authority when he granted those commutations. If the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution mean anything, Pam Bondi should not waste time and tax payer dollars trying to reverse them. I am glad that she wants to hear victim family voices, because President Biden ignored my voice. I wonder if Pam Bondi will hear me, because the other thing she will do in rehashing all of those cases is add to the pain of the victim families rather than assuaging them.
I helped lead a national coalition of more than 400 organizations calling for the commutation of all 40 federal death sentences, as well as those of the four men on the military death row. When the killer of my mother and two cousins was among the three men Biden left on federal death row, I was sentenced to continue my pain.
I understand the anguish the families of the victims are feeling. I would never tell anyone how to feel, but I must share my own story. Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, murdered my mother, two cousins, and six others in 2015 at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. For that, he was sentenced to death.
At trial I heard the terrible details of the murders again. I was very conflicted throughout Mr. Roof's trial. Yes, I wanted vengeance, but it brought me new misery to see such a young man with so much hate in his heart. However, by the time the sentencing phase ended, I felt that killing him would do nothing to help me heal. After much prayer and asking God to help me, I knew in my heart that killing him would not solve anything.
Because he was sentenced to death, we are still suffering in ways that could have been avoided. Seven years ago, Mr. Roof's first appeal was rejected. It was two years after his crime, but just the experience of that appeal being a headline brought back all of the horror of his violence, renewing our wounds.
Every time our case is in the news, I am returned to that terrible day and the searing pain that followed. It's as if he gets to continue the terror he intended to create, because the focus is on him and his message of hate, while his victims' families wait for the supposed finality of an execution that may never come.
This is the unintended but very real consequence of the death penalty. Rather than helping my family heal, Dylann Roof's death sentence prolongs our pain.
Based on my experience and that of many others whom I know, murder victim's families may discover that throwing away the key brings them more peace in the end. After all, life without the possibility of parole might better be understood as death by incarceration. I certainly agree that such killers should never be free, but an execution gives them a spotlight when they could just disappear and die in obscurity.
We can never get our loved ones back. But for me, not having the uncertainty of a death sentence hanging over me would make it easier to focus on the positive memories of those I lost. Getting rid of the death penalty also would bring a close to these torturous years of appeals for so many of us.
I wonder if AG Bondi and President Donald Trump might want to hear what I and other murder victim family members who don't agree with executions have to say. It is a cruel hoax to suggest that executions provide healing to murder victim family members. We can and must do better for the families left behind in the wake of violence—without executions.
Sharon Risher is chair of the board of Death Penalty Action. Her mother and two cousins were killed in the 2015 massacre at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
![Ben Affleck and Mini-Me Son Bond Over Basketball in Courtside Seats [PHOTOS]](https://entertainmentnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GettyImages-2197527755.jpg)
)
)
English (US) ·