I’d disagree. Its actually depends on the next to kins if they want to forgive. If they dont want to forgive, even whole wealth of the world can not do anything. It actually gives more option to victim’s family. If they are really poor and the guy killed was the only earner of the family at least rest of them can still survive and will not go through financial pain in addition to emotional.
btw, I am talking about general law and not for this particular scenario. If someone want to abuse the law, there is no law that can not be abused. Even if there was no Islamic law in this case, Americans would have taken their man somehow - so weak are we.