Two convicted murderers spared from execution by President Biden’s controversial clemency last month have asked a federal court to let them stay on death row.
Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis – both incarcerated at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. – have refused to sign paperwork that would reduce their sentences to life without parole and filed emergency motions in the state’s southern district federal court last week in an attempt to prevent Biden’s death-row reprieve from taking effect.
At issue is the belief by Agofsky and Davis – both of whom maintain their innocence – that the 82-year-old president’s commutation puts them at a legal disadvantage as they appeal their cases, 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,” Agofsky’s filing stated, according to the outlet. “This constitutes an undue burden, and leaves the defendant in a position of fundamental unfairness, which would decimate his pending appellate procedures.”
Meanwhile, Davis, describing his current situation as a “ fast-moving constitutional conundrum,” argued that “having a death sentence would draw attention to the overwhelming misconduct” he alleges against the Justice Department.
As Agofsky noted, death penalty appeals cases are more closely examined for errors than other cases under the heightened scrutiny doctrine – a benefit both men will lose if they are no longer facing capital punishment.
Case law does not appear to be on the inmates’ side, as the Supreme Court ruled in a 1927 case that a “convict’s consent is not required” for the president “to grant reprieves and pardons.”
Agofsky was sentenced to death in 2004 after he was convicted of stomping a fellow Texas prison inmate to death three years prior.
Agofsky had been serving a life sentence on murder and robbery charges dating back to the 1989 abduction and slaying of a bank president before he was convicted of the 2001 prison killing.
“The defendant never requested commutation,” his filing said. “The defendant never filed for commutation. The defendant does not want commutation, and refused to sign the papers offered with the commutation.”
Agofsky, 53, claims he is innocent in the 1989 bank president murder case and disputes how he was charged in the stomping death case.
“He doesn’t want to die in prison being labeled a cold-blooded killer,” his wife, Laura Agofsky, told NBC News.
Davis, 60, is a former New Orleans, La., police officer who was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill Kim Groves in 1994 after she had filed a complaint against him.
Davis “has always maintained his innocence,” his filing said, further arguing that the federal court that convicted him did not have jurisdiction in the case.
Agofsky and Davis were among 37 federal death row inmates granted clemency by Biden, a list that included several child killers and mass murderers.
Three notorious federal inmates – Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers and Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof – were not granted commutations and remain on death row.
