Two of the 37 federal death row inmates whose sentences were commuted to life without parole by President Joe Biden last month are refusing to accept the decision.
Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, both incarcerated at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, filed emergency motions in federal court on December 30. They are seeking an injunction to block the commutation of their death sentences, arguing it would negatively impact their ongoing legal appeals.
“Commuting his sentence now, while the defendant has active litigation, strips him of the protection of heightened scrutiny,” Agofsky’s filing stated, as first reported by NBC News. “This creates an undue burden and leaves the defendant in a fundamentally unfair position, undermining his pending appellate procedures.”
Agofsky’s wife told NBC News that her husband fears losing access to legal counsel currently provided to him as a death row inmate if his sentence is commuted.
Agofsky was initially sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 robbery and murder of Oklahoma bank president Dan Short. While serving his sentence, he was convicted of the 2001 killing of a fellow prisoner in a Texas facility, which placed him on death row. In his filing, Agofsky disputes the charges related to the prison murder and is working to establish his innocence in the 1989 case.
Len Davis, a former New Orleans police officer, was sentenced to death for orchestrating the 1994 murder of Kim Groves, who had filed a civil complaint against him for allegedly beating a teenager in her neighborhood.
President Biden’s commutation marked the highest number of death sentences reduced by any U.S. president in modern history. The clemency action applied to all federal death row inmates except three convicted of terrorism or hate-driven mass killings.
