Two death row inmates reject Biden's commutation of their sentences
Two of the 37 people on federal death row whose sentences were commuted last month are trying to block President Joe Biden's clemency action.
Shannon Wayne Agofsky, who was sentenced to death in 2004 in the killing of a fellow prisoner in Texas, and Len Davis, a former Louisiana police officer who was sentenced in 2005 for ordering the killing of a woman after she filed a complaint against him at the New Orleans Police Department, filed emergency petitions late last month to prevent their sentences from being commuted to life in prison without parole.
"The defendant never requested commutation. The defendant never filed for commutation," Agofsky wrote in his filing. "The defendant does not want commutation, and refused to sign the papers offered with the commutation."
Agofsky, initially imprisoned for another murder that occurred when he was 18, according to The Death Penalty Information Center, said in court document that he has been working "tirelessly" to establish his innocence in the original case and challenge his death sentence, arguing those charges were filed in a "multiplicitous and unconstitutional way.”
"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,” Agofsky wrote.
Laura Agofsky told NBC News her husband had refused to request a presidential commutation because he was able to seek legal counsel that is crucial to his appeals while he was on death row.
"He doesn't want to die in prison being labeled a cold-blooded killer," Laura Agofsky told the outlet.
Meanwhile, Davis said in his filing that he "has always maintained his innocence and argued that federal court had no jurisdiction to try him for civil rights offenses." He claimed that being sentenced to death would draw attention to "overwhelming misconduct" committed by the Justice Department.
Both men said they refused to sign paperwork for their commutations. But legally their consent is not required because the Supreme Court ruled in 1927 that the president can commute a death sentence without an inmate's consent.
"While it’s understandable that Mr. Davis and Mr. Agofsky may have concerns about what will happen next in their cases, their objections will have no legal effect," Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said in a statement to Paste BN. "The president’s power to commute their death sentences is grounded in his constitutional authority and is absolute."
Biden commuted the sentences of nearly every inmate on federal death row last month, a move The White House celebrated as the largest single-day of clemency actions in modern history.
The list of commutations released by the White House excluded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted in the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 that killed three people and injured more than 260; Robert Bowers, who was convicted in the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue mass shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people; and Dylann Roof, who was convicted in the 2015 mass shooting at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine people were killed.
The commutations were meant to stop President-elect Donald Trump from restarting executions, which were halted during the Biden administration.
"In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted," Biden said in a statement.
Contributing: Francesca Chambers and Gabe Hauari