From Trump-Vance Transition Team:
CBS 13: Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) called President Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences for the two men convicted of Samantha Burns’ murder “horribly misguided and insulting.”
Biden announced on Monday that he was changing the sentences for 37 out of the 40 people on federal death row from the death penalty to life in prison.
Two of those people are Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks. They are both serving time in connection to the kidnapping and killing of Marshall University student Samantha Burns.
Burns, who was 19 at the time, was last seen on Nov. 11, 2002, at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville. Her remains were never found.
Sen. Manchin said on Thursday that her family, “wrote letters to President Biden and the Department of Justice, pleading for them not to do this but their concerns were unheard.”
“As their U.S. Senator and a father, I want to express my deepest sympathy for their continued suffering,” Sen. Manchin said in a post on Facebook. “Please know that Samantha will forever be in our prayers.”
