Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti slammed President Joe Biden for commuting the sentence of federal death row inmate Rejon Taylor, who was convicted in the eastern district of Tennessee’s first federal death penalty case.
Taylor was charged in the August 6, 2003 abduction and killing of Atlanta restaurant owner Guy Luck, who was found shot to death on a rural roadside in Collegedale after being abducted in his van from his home in Georgia.
Our thoughts and prayers this Christmas week are with the family and friends of Guy Luck, a restaurateur who emigrated to America and enjoyed a great life before it was tragically cut short by murderer Rejon Taylor in 2003.
President Biden commuted Taylor’s death sentence… https://t.co/fQK74a2iyN
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) December 23, 2024
In 2008, a 12-person jury decided unanimously that Taylor should be executed in connection with the 2003 killing of Luck.
The case marked the first-ever death penalty proceedings to be held in Eastern Tennessee’s federal courts district.
On Monday, Taylor was one of the 37 inmates on death row who had their sentences commuted by Biden to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Biden said his decision to commute the sentences of the 37 inmates stems from his belief that “America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
In a post published to X, Skrmetti slammed Biden’s announcement, saying his “thoughts and prayers this Christmas week are with the family and friends of Guy Luck.”
“President Biden commuted Taylor’s death sentence explicitly to keep President Trump from carrying out this lawful penalty imposed by a federal jury in Tennessee and repeatedly upheld by federal courts. But no commutation can diminish the evil of Luck’s murder or the pain Taylor caused,” Skrmetti added.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team also reacted to Biden’s Monday announcement, calling the move an “abhorrent decision.”
“These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones. President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people,” Trump Communications Director Steven Cheung said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Jonathan Skrmetti” by Tennessee Attorney General. Photo “Joe Biden” by Joe Biden.
