Two inmates who are among the 37 federal inmates whose death sentences were commuted by President Joe Biden last month — a move that spares them from the death chamber — have taken an unusual stand: refusing to sign paperwork accepting his clemency move.
Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, both inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, filed emergency motions in federal court in the state’s Southern District on December 30, seeking an injunction to prevent their death sentences would be commuted to life without parole.
The men believe that commuting their sentences would put them at a legal disadvantage as they seek to appeal their cases based on claims of innocence.
The courts look closely at death penalty appeals in a legal process known as heightened scrutiny, which requires courts to examine death penalty cases for errors due to the life and death consequences of the sentence. The process doesn’t necessarily lead to a greater chance of success, but Agofsky suggested he doesn’t want to lose that extra research.
“To commute his sentence now, while the defendant is actively litigating in court, deprives him of the protection of enhanced supervision. This imposes an undue burden and leaves the defendant in a position of fundamental dishonesty, which would decimate his pending appeal. procedures,” according to Agofsky’s filing.
Davis wrote in his filing that he has “always maintained that having a death sentence would draw attention to the overwhelming misconduct” he alleges against the Justice Department.
He also wrote that he “thanks the court for its prompt attention to this rapidly evolving constitutional conundrum. The case law on this issue is quite murky.”
But prisoners face a major challenge if they have to have their death sentences overturned, said Dan Kobil, a constitutional law professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, who has represented defendants in death penalty and clemency cases.
For example, a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court ruling states that a president has the power to grant reprieves and pardons, and that “the consent of the condemned is not required.”
There are examples of prisoners who have refused commutations because they would rather be executed, Kobil said, but just as “we impose sentences for the common good, the president and governors in states commute sentences for the common good.”
Robin Maher, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, added that the vast majority of federal death row inmates were grateful for Biden’s decision, “which is constitutionally authorized and absolute.”
The Justice Department’s office of clemency counsel did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Agofsky was convicted of the 1989 murder of Oklahoma bank president Dan Short, whose body was found in a lake. Federal prosecutors said Agofsky and his brother, Joseph Agofsky, kidnapped and murdered Short before stealing $71,000 from his bank.
A jury declined to convict Joseph Agofsky of murder, but he received a life sentence for the robbery, while Shannon Agofsky received a life sentence for murder and robbery. Joseph Agofsky died in prison in 2013.
While incarcerated in a Texas prison, Shannon Agofsky was convicted in 2001 of murdering a fellow inmate, Luther Plant, and a jury recommended a death sentence in 2004.
In his application for a commutation order against Biden, Agofsky, 53, said he disputes how he was charged with murder in the stomping death and is also trying to “establish his innocence in the original case for which he was incarcerated.” “
“The defendant never requested a commutation. The defendant never requested a commutation,” the filing said. “The defendant does not want a buyout and has refused to sign the papers presented with the buyout.”
Agofsky’s wife Laura, who married him in a 2019 ceremony over the phone, said Monday that his lawyers urged him to seek a presidential commutation in his case, but he declined because of his death status convict gave him legal advice. is critical in his profession.
However, Laura Agofsky said her husband still has lawyers helping him. Merely commuting his sentence is “not a victory for him,” she said, because she believes there is evidence to prove his innocence.
“He doesn’t want to die in prison because he’s being labeled a cold-blooded killer,” Laura Agofsky said in a telephone interview.
Davis, a former New Orleans police officer, was convicted in 1994 of killing Kim Groves, who had filed a complaint against him accusing him of beating a teenager in her Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. Prosecutors said Davis hired a drug dealer to kill Groves and accused the officer of violating Groves’ civil rights. Davis’ original death sentence was thrown out by a federal appeals court but reinstated in 2005.
The case was part of an extensive federal investigation into corruption within the New Orleans Police Department.
Davis, 60, “has always maintained his innocence and argued that the federal court had no jurisdiction to try him for civil rights violations,” according to his filing.
Both Davis and Agofsky are asking a judge to appoint co-counsel in their requests for a commutation order.
Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center said all people accused of federal crimes have a constitutional right to an attorney for a trial, as well as a legal right to an appeal if convicted, regardless of whether they are death row cases.
“Death sentences are the most extreme sanction that can be imposed in a criminal case and deserve the highest quality legal representation and judicial oversight,” Maher said.
Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates, all men, came after weeks of speculation. He has been praised by a coalition of human rights and anti-death penalty groups that have expressed opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to expand federal executions in his second term.
The Justice Department under Biden has imposed a moratorium on executions.
“I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden said in a statement announcing the commutation. “I cannot in good conscience sit back and let a new government resume the executions I stopped.”
However, Biden refused to grant commutations to three federal death row inmates involved in mass murders or terrorist attacks.
Still, the president has been criticized for commuting the sentences of the 37 others.
The Office of the Independent Police Monitor in New Orleans, a civilian police oversight agency created in 2009, said the commutation of Davis’ death sentence is “a painful reminder that justice is not always served as it should be.”
“In this action, President Biden showed more mercy to Davis than this corrupt officer ever showed to Kim Groves, her children and family, and the people of New Orleans,” the agency said in a statement.
Laura Agofsky, a German citizen who first connected with her husband as pen pals and has not yet met him in person, said she realizes reversing the commutation is an uphill battle, but he remains focused on fighting his case .
“We have been talking about the possibility of a commutation since Biden was elected, given his previous statements on the death penalty,” said Laura Agofsky, who has become an advocate for her husband and works with the German Coalition for the Abolition of Death. Punishment. (Germany does not have the death penalty.)
While Biden’s announcement was “a very dark day for us,” she added, “now, with the knowledge that he will retain his lawyers, we know they will fight for him.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
