1 day Ago By [email protected] (Christopher Bucktin, Liam Doyle)
Death row killers who were officially pardoned by US President Joe Biden have refused to sign the documents granting their release - and ultimately saving their lives - for a bizarre reason. Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, incarcerated at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, filed motions on December 30. They argue that the act of clemency - part of Biden’s decision last month to commute the death sentences of 37 federal inmates to life without parole - would harm their efforts to appeal their cases on claims of innocence.
Davis, a former New Orleans police officer, was convicted in 1994 for orchestrating the murder of Kim Groves, a local resident who had filed a complaint alleging the cop had beaten a teenager. Prosecutors argued he hired a drug dealer to kill Groves in retaliation, charging him with violating her civil rights. While his death sentence was initially overturned by a federal appeals court, it was reinstated in 2005.
In his court filing, Davis claims he has “always maintained his innocence” and argues that the federal court lacked jurisdiction to try him for civil rights violations. He also asserts that retaining his death sentence is crucial to drawing attention to what he describes as “overwhelming misconduct” by the Department of Justice. His motion states that accepting clemency would undermine his ability to challenge his conviction and sentence on procedural and jurisdictional grounds.
Agofsky, convicted in 1989 for the murder of Oklahoma bank president Dan Short, has also rejected Biden’s clemency. Prosecutors said he and his brother, Joseph, kidnapped Short, tied him to a chair, and threw him into a lake before stealing $71,000 (£56,600) from his bank. While his sibling received a life sentence for the robbery, Agofsky was convicted of both theft and murder, receiving a life sentence.
In 2001, while serving his sentence, he was convicted of killing a fellow inmate in Texas by stomping him to death. A jury recommended the death penalty in 2004. In his filing, Agofsky disputes the circumstances of his conviction in the inmate killing and claims he is working to “establish his innocence in the original case for which he was incarcerated.
” He argues that accepting the commutation would strip him of access to certain legal avenues, such as “heightened scrutiny,” which are afforded to death row inmates appealing their sentences. Both men believe Biden’s decision jeopardises their long-term efforts to overturn their convictions and secure exoneration. The president’s clemency action, part of his administration’s broader stance against capital punishment, has drawn praise from anti-death penalty advocates but raised questions about its impact on ongoing legal battles.
If the courts grant the inmates’ requests to block the commutations, it could create a legal precedent for challenging executive clemency - a power traditionally considered absolute under the Constitution..
