Convicted Inmates Reject Biden's Grant of Clemency, Strive to Prove Innocence
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World
January 8, 2025 13:56
terre haute, indiana - Two death row inmates, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, firmly rejected the commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment as they aim to prove their innocence. Find out more about their stance and the implications of their decision.
The duo has filed an urgent request with the court to block the commutation to life imprisonment without parole, as reported by The Telegraph. Agofsky's lawyer stated that his client never sought sentence reduction. Additionally, Davis hoped that the looming threat of the death penalty would draw attention to the 'exorbitant misconduct' of the Justice Department.
Biden's clemency marked the largest conversion of death penalties in American history. Incoming President Donald Trump expressed interest in increasing the frequency of implementing the death penalty when he assumes office.
Initially serving a life sentence for killing a bank director, 53-year-old Shannon Agofsky received a death penalty in 2004 for allegedly murdering a fellow inmate. Former police officer Len Davis (60) from New Orleans was sentenced to death in 1994 for hiring a hitman to kill a woman who had filed a complaint against him. Both men are incarcerated at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Agofsky's attorneys noted in a legal document that their client 'sought to prove his innocence in the original case for which he was imprisoned. He rejects the offered sentence reduction and refuses to sign the papers.' Converting his sentence would place Agofsky in a 'position of fundamental unfairness,' according to his file, rendering his ongoing appeals futile. Davis labeled the clemency a constitutional puzzle.
Experts suggest that both inmates face an uphill battle as they defy the commutation of their death sentences. Robin Maher, director of the non-profit Death Penalty Information Centre, mentioned to NBC News that the vast majority gratefully accepted clemency.
Three inmates—Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon shooter, Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, and Dylann Roof, the Charleston church shooter—were excluded from Biden's pardon and remain on death row.