In his latest act of clemency, President Joe Biden on Dec. 23 commuted the sentences of nearly every inmate on federal death row, including a Buncombe County man convicted and sentenced to death for the 1994 fatal shooting of a Candler woman.
Richard Allen Jackson was convicted of killing Karen Styles, a 22-year-old Western Carolina University graduate who went jogging at the Bent Creek Recreation Area near Lake Powhatan on October 31, 1994. President Joe Biden commuted Jackson’s federal death sentence on December 23, 2024.
Of the 40 people on federal death row, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Among those whose sentences Biden commuted is Richard Allen Jackson, a Buncombe County man convicted of using a firearm on federal land in the kidnapping, sexual abuse and shooting death of Karen Styles, a 22-year-old college graduate Western Carolina University.
Styles disappeared on October 31, 1994, after going jogging at the Bent Creek Recreation Area near Lake Powhatan in Pisgah National Forest. Nearly a month later, a deer hunter found her partially nude body tied to a tree near the Hard Times Trail, the Citizen Times previously reported.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable actions, and grieve for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable losses,” Biden said in a Dec. 23 statement.
He added: “I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience I cannot sit back and let a new government resume the executions I stopped.”
The Biden administration has imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, although it is widely expected that newly elected President Donald Trump will resume executions during his second term. The Trump administration carried out thirteen executions during his first term.
In response to the commutations, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung denounced Biden’s decision in a December 23 statement, calling it “a slap in the face to the victims, their families and their loved ones.”
The three on death row whose sentences Biden did not commute were convicted of acts of terrorism or hate-motivated murders. The three include:
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Dylann Roofconvicted of killing nine people in a 2015 mass shooting at Mother Emanuel, a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaevconvicted of killing three in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing
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Robert Bowersconvicted of killing 11 people in a 2018 anti-Semitic mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue
This is not Biden’s first historic act of clemency.
On December 12, Biden commuted the sentences of 1,500 federal prisoners released to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Keith Vinson, an area developer who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2015 for his role in a $23 million bank loan scheme . The White House described these commutations as “the largest single-day pardons in modern history.”
A plea bargain, and then a death sentence
Jackson, a dishwasher and adopted son of prominent community leader J.D. Jackson, was first sentenced to death after a trial in state court in 1995, the Citizen Times previously reported. The NC Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, ruling that Jackson’s confession was inadmissible.
The federal courthouse on Otis St.
When Jackson, 25, was questioned at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department in December 1994, he had said he needed a lawyer, but then-District Attorney Ron Moore allowed the questioning to proceed. Jackson later confessed to Styles’ murder.
Before Jackson could be retried, he pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree murder, first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping and was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison.
The following year, 2001, a federal jury convicted him of using a firearm on federal land in the Styles shooting and recommended he be sentenced to death. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Jackson’s conviction and death sentence multiple times, most recently in 2022.
Had he remained in prison on state charges, Jackson, now 55, likely would have been released in 2023, according to the N.C. Department of Adult Correction. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, Jackson is currently being held at a maximum security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Styles’ mother, Katheryn Styles, did not respond to a Dec. 23 request from the Citizen Times for comment on the commutation of Jackson’s death sentence.
Karen Styles was 22 when she was murdered in October 1994.
The Rev. Cari Willis, Jackson’s spiritual adviser, told the Citizen Times on Dec. 23 that she is “extremely excited” about Biden’s action.
“They’ve all been waiting for this for a while,” Willis said.
“However, my heart goes out to the three men whose sentences were not commuted,” she added. ‘Nobody deserves to be executed. Nobody.’
While advocates applaud Biden’s clemency, many are also waiting to see whether Governor Roy Cooper will commute the sentences of the 136 people held on North Carolina’s death row.
Seven people from Buncombe County are currently on the state’s death row, according to the Department of Adult Correction. They were all sent there between 1992 and 2000. The state has not executed anyone since 2006, as there are still several problems in court with the way the state applies the death penalty. Despite the de facto moratorium, death penalty opponents believe the state will resume executions in the near future.
“Governor Cooper has a historic opportunity to burnish his legacy with a deeply principled and courageous decision to commute the sentences of those on death row,” said Jake Sussman, chief justice reform adviser at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, in a speech delivered in December 2011. 23 statement. “North Carolina’s death penalty system has long been plagued by racial bias, wrongful convictions, and disproportionate sentencing. Commuting the sentences of those on death row would reaffirm Governor Cooper’s commitment to fairness and justice and set a powerful example for the nation.”
More: Death sentence upheld for murder and rape of Karen Styles in Pisgah National Forest
More: Biden commutes Seven Falls developer Keith Vinson’s sentence; convicted of wire fraud
Jacob Biba is the county watchdog reporter at the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY network. Email him at jbiba@citizentimes.com
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Biden commutes Buncombe County man’s death penalty to life in prison
