Two Federal Death Row Inmates Reject Biden’s Clemency While Another Demands Release
Two federal death row inmates whose sentences were recently commuted by the outgoing president, Joe Biden, have refused to accept clemency.
In December 2024, Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates to life without the possibility of parole.
However, while maintaining their innocence, death row inmates Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis claimed that accepting Biden’s clemency would jeopardize their appeals.
Subsequently, the two inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, refused to sign clemency documents and filed emergency motions seeking an injunction to prevent their death sentences from commutation to life without parole.
“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,” Agofsky’s filing stated.
Due to their irreversible nature, death sentences receive “heightened scrutiny” to rule out potential errors, thus making their appeals more likely to be heard.
Agofsky was sentenced to death after the court found him guilty of murdering a bank president in 1989, while Davis was a former New Orleans police officer who was convicted of killing a citizen in 1994.
Kim Groves had filed an official complaint against Davis after she allegedly witnessed him beat a teenager in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood.
Besides Agofsky and Davis, Biden’s clemency emboldened other violent criminals, encouraging them to take drastic actions to escape spending life behind bars.
Brandon Council, 38, a Biden commutation recipient convicted of killing two moms, Donna Major, 59, and Katie Skeen, 36, demanded to be released from prison on compassionate grounds.
He claimed that serving his sentence in permanent solitary confinement had caused him severe, unnecessary, and unjustifiable psychological harm.
The double murderer claims that the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, where he serves his sentence, is one of the worst in the country. Thus, his sentence “can only be accurately construed and assimilated as an act of torture.”
Citing the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, in which the United States is a signatory, the lethal bank robber filed a motion requesting compassionate release based on “extraordinary or compelling circumstances.”
Sadly, none of the murderers’ innocent victims can apply for a second chance after their lives were permanently terminated without provocation.
Biden’s act of mercy was itself a slap in the face of the victims’ families, who finally had closure after receiving the highest form of justice.
“I am totally disappointed in our justice system,” said Daniel Major, Donna’s husband. “The fact that the senile president has the power and the authority [to] just disregard [the] justice system, it’s a complete abuse of power.”
During the commutations, Biden said he intended to prevent the incoming Trump administration from carrying out the federal executions. Trump was considering applying the death sentence to drug dealers and child traffickers.
“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he said.
The outgoing president also criticized the U.S. federal government’s use of the death penalty to punish the worst kind of violent criminals.
“…I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” he said.
Biden’s commutations followed the controversial pardon of his criminal son of a decade of proven and potential federal crimes.
Biden also pardoned Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan, who was involved in the “kids for cash” scheme that incarcerated juveniles for kickbacks.
