ROANOKE, Va. – In one of his last acts as president, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of close to 2,500 drug offenders.
That includes the so-called ‘Waverly Two’ - Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne.
They were accused of killing Officer Allen Gibson in Sussex County in 1998.
His widow lives in Pulaski County and is just one of the many people outraged by the action. However, other groups, such as the Virginia NAACP, believe Biden’s actions are a step toward justice.
Richardson and Claiborne have maintained for years that they were innocent of Gibson’s death. They said were coerced into pleading guilty to state charges in the case to avoid the death penalty on the state level, despite evidence that was never brought up that would have cleared them.
“It’s a really sad situation when we are looking at the weight of evidence that demonstrated, number one, that all evidence was not provided to their defense at the time of their trial and the discrepancies between why they were convicted and what the actual evidence showed,” said Valerie Slater, criminal justice chair for the Virginia NAACP.
Federal law enforcement later charged the men with murder and drug conspiracy.
They were found innocent of the murder charges but not the drug charges. A federal judge used the facts from the state case to sentence the men to life in prison.
“We don’t want to just say we did this thing … to support the family,” Slater said. “We want to say that we did right, that we brought justice for the officer, justice for the family and truly create a greater public safety for the Commonwealth of Virginia. We did not have it until that clemency was granted.”
Biden’s decision to commute the sentences sparked shock and anger from Gibson’s family, supported by officials including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares.
While his predecessor, Mark Herring, supported Richardson’s push for innocence, Miyares changed course once he took office.
Miyares shared a statement from Gibson’s daughter Crissana:
I am absolutely outraged by what has happened. My heart is shattered knowing that the men that killed my father are going to be released from prison and can walk the streets freely. This is a huge miscarriage of justice, and I am completely disgusted by the outgoing administration. The Virginia Attorney General’s office has worked tirelessly to keep these murderers behind bars, and I am forever grateful for their dedication and hard work. I am so disappointed that the disgraceful Biden administration has failed my family, my father, and the entire law enforcement community. Neither my family nor I have ever supported the release of Richardson or Claiborne, and we denounce this decision by the outgoing failed presidency of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s abuse of the justice system.
Under the terms of the clemency, the men are set to be released in July.