Former President Joe Biden commuted the life sentences of two Virginia men who are in prison in connection with the 1998 killing of a police officer, despite a federal jury acquitting them of his murder.
Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne were charged in the killing of Allen Gibson, a police officer in Waverly, who was shot with his service weapon while breaking up a suspected drug deal in the woods behind an apartment building.
Biden’s commutation, which came three days before he left office, drew outrage from Gibson’s daughter, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and state Attorney General Jason Miyares. The Virginia NAACP praised the decision and accused state Republicans of politicizing the case.
Both men have denied killing Gibson, claiming they took plea deals in state court to avoid the death penalty.
In 1999, Richardson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and Claiborne pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the crime after the fact. Richardson received a five-year sentence and Claiborne got time served.
Richardson and Claiborne were later charged in federal court with conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and murder in connection with Gibson’s death.The jury acquitted them of murder, but found the pair guilty of the drug charges.
Federal prosecutors urged the judge to consider the state pleas when sentencing Richardson and Claiborne — which the judge did when sentencing them to life in prison.
Federal appeal efforts for the Waverly Two were rejected, leading Richardson to seek exoneration of his state conviction, a process that his legal team hoped would make way for their releases.
Under former Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring, the commonwealth supported Richardson and Claiborne’s exoneration efforts. But Virginia’s stance shifted after Miyares, a Republican, took over the AG’s office in 2022.
Last May, a Sussex County judge allowed new evidence in Richardson’s innocence petition after state attorneys in Miyares’ office and Richardson’s legal counsel sparred over the case during a two-day hearing.
Richardson’s attorneys argued evidence pointing to another potential assailant was ignored, an assertion the AG’s office disputed.
Before his death, Gibson told an officer that he was shot by two Black men after a scuffle. He said one of the suspects had dreadlocks and the other had short, sparse hair. Richardson had cornrows and Claiborne didn’t have hair at the time of Gibson’s death, their attorneys said in court.
In recent appeal hearings, Richardon’s attorney, Jarrett Adams, argued that there was new evidence in the case. This included a written statement from an eyewitness who was 9 years old at the time, a phone lineup from that witness identifying another man as the shooter and a 911 call indicating that same man was the shooter.
During May’s evidentiary hearing, the eyewitness, Shannequia Gay, took the stand more than 25 years after Gibson’s death. Gay said she didn’t remember pointing out another man or other key details in the case.
An investigator in the murder case testified in May that he transcribed Gay’s statement when she was 9, and confirmed the signatures on it were his and the eyewitnesses. An attorney with the AG’s office challenged the written statement’s validity, but the judge ultimately allowed it to be entered as evidence.
In rebukes of Biden’s move, Youngkin and Miyares said the former Democratic president went against the advice of federal prosecutors.
“What makes this even more unconscionable is the Biden U.S Attorney advised the White House not to commute these sentences as they are violent offenders,” Youngkin said in a statement. “The pain and sorrow this clemency causes the Gibson family is unimaginable.”
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia declined to comment Tuesday.
A commutation reduces a sentence but doesn’t scrub a conviction from someone’s record. According to Youngkin’s office, Richardson and Claiborne are expected to be released in July.
Crissana Gibson, the slain officer’s daughter, criticized Biden in a statement shared in a press release from Miyares’ office, calling the Waverly Two “murderers” and referred to the decision to grant them clemency “a huge miscarriage of justice.”
"I am absolutely outraged by what has happened,” Gibson said. “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.”
Gibson added that neither she nor anyone in her family “have ever supported the release of Richardson or Claiborne.”
In a statement reported by WRIC in 2020, Gibson said she backed an investigation to prove Richardson and Claiborne’s innocence, if evidence showed they didn’t commit the crime. But she added that they should not be released if the “judicial system finds that their convictions are solid and just.”
“Let me be clear — I want the persons responsible for my father’s murder to be
held fully accountable for their actions; if that is not Terrence and Ferrone, I want
justice done for them AND IT MUST NOT STOP THERE,” Gibson wrote in the 2020 statement.
Rev. Cozy Bailey, the Virginia NAACP’s president, called the commutations “a vital step toward correcting a grave injustice.”
“The Waverly Two are not just a statistic; they are individuals whose lives were shattered by a flawed legal system,” Bailey said in a statement.
He accused Youngkin and Miyares of manipulating the case’s facts “for their political agenda” rather than focusing “on justice and truth.”
In Miyares’ press release, Gibson said she and her family denounce the move “by the outgoing failed presidency of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s abuse of the justice system."
Miyares went after Democrats over Biden’s decision, saying that if the party intends “to build their vision of social justice on a pile of dead law enforcement officers, they could send no stronger message than the one they sent today.”
The fact that Biden commuted Richardson’s sentence rather than granting him a pardon “only supports our position that he is in fact guilty of manslaughter,” Miyares said in his statement.
Crissana Gibson did not respond to a request for comment.