Two demise row inmates reject Joe Biden’s commutations

Two of the 37 federal prisoners whose demise sentences have been commuted to life in jail with out parole final month by Joe Biden are refusing to simply accept the motion.

Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, each at the moment held on the federal jail in Terre Haute, Indiana, filed emergency motions in court docket on 30 December searching for injunctions to dam the commutation of their demise sentences.

The 2 males argue that accepting the commutations places them at a authorized drawback as they’re searching for to attraction their instances.

“To commute his sentence now, whereas the defendant has lively litigation in court docket, is to strip him of the safety of heightened scrutiny. This constitutes an undue burden, and leaves the defendant able of basic unfairness, which might decimate his pending appellate procedures,” in response to Agofsky’s submitting, first reported by NBC Information.

Agofsky’s spouse advised NBC Information the priority was he would lose authorized counsel offered to him if his sentence have been commuted.

Agofsky obtained a life sentence after being convicted in 1989 within the theft and killing of Oklahoma financial institution president Dan Quick. Whereas imprisoned in a Texas jail, he was convicted within the 2001 stomping demise of one other prisoner, inserting him on demise row.

Within the submitting, Agofsky is disputing how he was charged with the homicide of the man prisoner and is making an attempt to ascertain his innocence within the 1989 case.

Len Davis, a former New Orleans police officer, was convicted for the 1994 homicide of Kim Groves, who had filed a civil grievance towards him, accusing him of beating an adolescent in her neighborhood.

Biden’s motion marked the best variety of demise sentences commuted by any American president within the trendy period.

The clemency motion utilized to all federal demise row inmates besides three who have been convicted of terrorism or hate-motivated mass homicide. They have been Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of attacking the Boston marathon; Dylann Roof, who shot useless 9 Black church members in South Carolina; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers in a synagogue in 2018.