08 January 2025 , 07:54
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In a shocking move, two death row inmates have rejected President Joe Biden’s commutation of their sentences.
Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis were among 37 federal prisoners who were granted clemency from execution by Biden last month. Their death sentenced were commuted to life in prison without parole.
But the outgoing president’s gesture was not appreciated by Agofsky and Davis, who are both behind bars in Terre Haute, Indiana.
They filed emergency motions in court on December 30 to block their commutations, arguing it would put their appeal cases at a disadvantage.
Agofsky’s filing stated, according to NBC News: ‘To commute his sentence now, while the defendant has active litigation in court, is to strip him of the protection of heightened scrutiny.
‘This constitutes an undue burden, and leaves the defendant in a position of fundamental unfairness, which would decimate his pending appellate procedures.’
Meanwhile, Davis wrote in his filing that ‘having a death sentence would draw attention to the overwhelming misconduct’. He added that ‘the case law on this issue is quite murky’ and thanked the court ‘for its prompt attention to this fast-moving constitutional conundrum’.
Agofsky and Davis have declined to sign paperwork for their commutations.
Shannon Agofsky was convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of an inmate in a federal prison (Picture: Missouri Department of Corrections)
However, a 1927 Supreme Court ruling established that an inmate’s consent is ‘not required’ for the death sentence to be commuted, meaning that the two inmates may an uphill battle to block Biden’s order.
Most of the death row inmates were thankful for Biden’s clemency ‘which is constitutionally authorized and absolute’, Death Penalty Information Center executive director Robin Maher told NBC News.
Agofsky was convicted of murdering a bank president in 1989. He and his brother kidnapped and killed the victim and stole $71,000 from his bank account and the body was discovered in an Oklahoma lake, according to prosecutors. Agofsky was sentenced to life in prison on murder and robbery charges, then given a death sentence in 2004 for stomping a fellow inmate to death.
Len Davis was convicted of murdering a woman who filed a brutality complaint against him (Picture: AP)
Davis, a former cop in New Orleans, was convicted of murdering a woman who accused him of brutally beating a teen in her neighborhood in 1994. Davis hired a drug dealer to murder the woman, according to prosecutors, who charged him with violating her civil rights. Davis had his death sentence tossed by a federal appeals court, but in 2005 it was reinstated.
Biden halted some executions during his term, and his commutations are intended to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from going forward with them.
‘In good conscience,’ stated Biden, ‘I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.’