Biden commuted 37 inmates’ death sentences. Why two of them said no thanks

Two prisoners who insist they are innocent are worried the commutations could hinder their appeals

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a ceremony to award the Presidential Citizens Medal in the East Room of the White House on January 2 (Getty Images)

Two death row inmates are refusing to sign paperwork accepting President Joe Biden’s commutation of their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to NBC News.

Last month, Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 federal inmates in a move that was applauded by anti-death penalty advocates. But two of those prisoners, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, who are imprisoned at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, have filed emergency motions requesting injunctions to prevent their death sentences from being commuted, saying they are still trying to prove their innocence and believe the commutations could put their appeals at risk.

Death penalty appeals undergo a special process known as heightened scrutiny, with courts carefully examining such cases for mistakes because of the severe consequences of the sentence. While the process doesn’t necessarily give prisoners a better chance of winning their appeal, Agofsky noted in his filing that he doesn’t want to lose the heightened scrutiny process.

“To commute his sentence now, while the defendant has active litigation in court, is to strip him of the protection of heightened scrutiny. This constitutes an undue burden, and leaves the defendant in a position of fundamental unfairness, which would decimate his pending appellate procedures,” his filing states.

Meanwhile, Davis said in his filing that he “has always maintained that having a death sentence would draw attention to the overwhelming misconduct” that he claims the Department of Justice is guilty of.

Guard towers rise above the grounds of the Federal Correctional Complex Terre Haute on July 25, 2019 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Two inmates at the complex have rejected the commutations of their death sentences (Getty Images)

He added that he “thanks the court for its prompt attention to this fast-moving constitutional conundrum. The case law on this issue is quite murky.”

But the inmates may struggle to get their death sentences restored, with a 1927 Supreme Court ruling stating that the president can grant reprieves and pardons, adding that “the convict’s consent is not required.”

Agofsky was convicted following the murder of Oklahoma bank president Dan Short, whose body was found in a lake in 1989. According to federal prosecutors, Agofsky and his brother Joseph Agofsky abducted and killed Short and stole $71,000 from the bank.

Joseph Agosfky, who died in prison in 2013, was handed a life sentence for the robbery, while Shannon Agofsky got a life sentence for the murder and robbery.

Shannon Agofsky was subsequently convicted of having stomped another inmate to death at a Texas prison in 2001. A jury recommended a death sentence in 2004.

The 53-year-old notes in his request for an injunction on Biden’s commutation that he’s still attempting to clear his name in the original case.

“The defendant never requested commutation. The defendant never filed for commutation,” the filing says. “The defendant does not want commutation, and refused to sign the papers offered with the commutation.”

Laura Agofsky, who married Shannon Agofsky in a phone ceremony in 2019, told NBC News Monday that his lawyers had told him to request a commutation. He refused because his death row status gives him the legal counsel he needs to appeal his cases.

“He doesn’t want to die in prison being labeled a cold-blooded killer,” Laura Agofsky told NBC News.

Davis is a former New Orleans police officer convicted of the murder of Kim Groves in 1994. Prosecutors claimed that Davis employed a drug dealer to kill Groves after she filed a brutality complaint against him for reportedly beating a teenager. While Davis’s death sentence was thrown out, it was reinstated in 2005 by a federal appeals court.

The 60-year-old filing states that he “has always maintained his innocence and argued that federal court had no jurisdiction to try him for civil rights offenses.”