U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) is criticizing President Joe Biden for his decision to commute dozens of death sentences. 

Manchin, according to the Washington Examiner, did so in social media posts this past week.

Take a look:

After speaking to Samantha Burns’ parents, I believe it is my duty to speak on their behalf and say President Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences for the two men convicted in her brutal murder is horribly misguided and insulting. (1/3)

— Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) December 26, 2024

Background

In case you missed it, Biden recently used the presidential pardon power to commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates.

Fox News, at the time, reported:

President Biden is commuting the sentences of nearly all the inmates on federal death row, a move that comes not even two weeks after he went through with the 'largest single-day grant of clemency' in American history, the White House announced Monday.

This, of course, is not to mention the fact that Biden also pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, in yet another controversial move.

Fox continues:

Of the 40 inmates on federal death row, according to DeathPenaltyInfo.org, Biden is commuting 37 men sentenced to death, reclassifying their sentences to life without the possibility of parole.

The move has sparked a significant backlash.

Manchin speaks up

Manchin is retiring from the U.S. Senate, and, on his way out, he has been speaking his mind. In his social media posts, he particularly took issue with Biden's decision to commute the death sentence penalty of Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks.

These two individuals were responsible for the 2002 murder of 19-year-old Marshall University student Samantha Burns - although this is not what they received the death penalty for.

The Examiner reports:

Burns was killed in Ohio following a carjacking at a West Virginia mall by Basham and Fulks as part of a deadly weekslong crime spree through multiple states after escaping from a jail in Hopkins County, Kentucky. The pair was not on death row for the killing of Burns. Rather, they were sentenced to death for the kidnapping and killing of 44-year-old Alice Donovan in South Carolina during the same crime spree.

Manchin, in a social media post, wrote "President Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences for the two men convicted in her brutal murder is horribly misguided and insulting."

Manchin went on to reveal that "Samantha’s family wrote letters to President Biden & the Department of Justice, pleading for them not to do this, but their concerns were unheard."