One of the ‘Non-Violent Criminals’ Biden Released Murdered an 8-Year-Old and His Mom

Did Joe Biden even look at the 2,500 cases he commuted before leaving office? Probably not. But he still took credit for setting a record.

President Joe Biden announced Friday that he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, using his final days in office on a flurry of clemency actions meant to nullify prison terms he deemed too harsh.

The recent round of clemency gives Biden the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. The Democrat said he is seeking to undo “disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice.”

One of those people convicted of “non-violent drug offenses” was Adrian Peeler. Peeler was the brother of another convicted murderer, Russell Peeler, who ran a drug gang out of his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

Russell Peeler had a dispute with one of the people in his gang, Rudolph Snead Jr. In 1997, Peeler attempted to carry out a drive-by shooting of Snead while Snead’s 7-year-old son, LeRoy, was in the car. Snead was hit but survived. The boy’s mother, Karen Clarke, then brought him to the police where he identified Russell Peeler as the shooter.

In 1998, Russell Peeler decided to finish the job and burst into a barbershop and shot Snead dead. He would eventually be convicted of that murder but at the time he was still facing charges for the attempted drive-by shooting. With Snead dead, the only witness was the little boy.

After BJ’s mother took him to the police, where he identified Peeler as the shooter in the 1997 drive-by, police offered her protection. But she refused, and instead moved to a duplex on Earl Avenue.

But coincidentally, that home was across the street from a house Russel Peeler used to cook crack.

He asked his associates to kill the mother and her son, something he couldn’t do because he was wearing an ankle monitor and couldn’t leave his home. 

Adrian Peeler agreed to do it, unhappily, according to testimony. 

We’re supposed to believe he felt really conflicted about the double murder to protect his scumbag brother, but he did it. He was convicted of conspiracy to murder back in 1999.

The mother and son were ambushed as they returned home to their apartment in January 1999. Police found the boy with a bullet hole in the back of his head on the stairs and Clarke riddled with gunshot wounds and her outstretched hand inches from a phone, according to CT Post.

Peeler, the alleged shooter, beat the top charge of murder and served 25 years in state prison for conspiracy to commit murder.

Karen Clarke’s brother was shocked that his sister’s murderer was grouped in with non-violent drug offenders.

“I’m sick and tired and I’m disgusted,” he told The Associated Press in phone interview Wednesday. “It’s a very shocking thing. My family is very distraught about it. It’s like we’re being traumatized all over again.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how Peeler, now 48, came to Biden’s attention, and the former president did not publicly disclose specific reasons for commuting Peeler’s federal sentence. Email and social media messages were left with former White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre and current White House spokesperson Harrison Fields.

So how did this happen? Well, apparently it has to do with Peeler being convicted on two separate sets of charges. The murder charge was a state charge for which he got 25 years. That sentence was completed in 2021. But he was also incarcerated on federal drug trafficking charges which is why he was still in prison.

Despite an eyewitness, Adrian Peeler eventually was only convicted of conspiring to kill the mother and son. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, then remained in prison for a 35-year sentence for drug-dealing.

It was the sentence for federal drug-dealing charges that Biden commuted last Friday.

And that’s how a convicted murderer has his “non-violent drug charge” commuted. But of course, even if you overlook the double murder of a child and his mother, Joe Biden’s statement about reducing “disproportionately long sentences” still shouldn’t have applied in this case. Why? Because Adrian Peeler had already received a 20-year reduction of his sentence.

In 2021, a federal appeals court reduced Peeler’s federal drug sentence after he applied under the First Step Act, a federal sentencing reform. His sentence was reduced to 15 years to be served consecutively to his sentence in state court, with no credit for time served. The reduced sentence also included five years of supervision upon his release.

He got 20 years off his sentence just three years ago and should have been in prison until 2034. Instead, he’ll get released this year, sometime this summer. So the time served on his reduced 15-year sentence for drug trafficking will only be about 4 years thanks to Biden.

Sen. Ted Cruz called this “unmitigated evil.”

Unmitigated evil.

And the corporate media will ignore…. https://t.co/GAy8FQfB2i

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 27, 2025

So far as I can tell the NY Times hasn’t written anything about Peeler’s commutation even though they previously covered his case in the 90s. NBC News, CBS News, ABC News and CNN also seem not to have mentioned it. The Washington Post gave it three paragraphs with a link to the AP story. So with the exception of the AP story and Fox News, this has been ignored by the national media. It is getting lots of attention from the media in CT.