A “historic” decision. On December 23, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 sentenced to death by federal justice. Of some 2,300 prisoners on death row in the United States, only 40 were sentenced by federal justice until the clemency measure taken by the outgoing president. The Democrat’s announcement was eagerly awaited by human rights activists, who feared a wave of executions under Donald Trump.
The prisoners concerned thus see their death sentence commuted to a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Clearly, they will never leave prison, but will not be executed. Of the forty prisoners affected by this act of clemency, two refuse to sign the documents that would take them off death row, writes NBC News. On December 30, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis filed emergency motions to prevent the commutation of their sentences. Both are currently incarcerated in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Shannon Agofsky, 53, was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of Dan Short, a bank manager in Oklahoma. The prosecution claimed that the suspect and his brother Joseph kidnapped and killed the victim before dumping his body in a lake and stealing $71,000 from his bank. Joseph Agofsky was sentenced to life in prison for the burglary, then died in prison in 2013. Shannon received the same sentence, but was sentenced to execution in 2004 for stomping a fellow inmate to death in 2001 .
Former New Orleans police officer Len Davis was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of 32-year-old Kim Groves. This single mother had filed a complaint against him, claiming that he had hit a teenager in her neighborhood. According to the prosecutor, the 60-year-old ex-police officer hired a drug dealer to kill Kim Groves. His death sentence was lifted on appeal, but reinstated in 2005.
If Agofsky and Davis refuse to sign the commutation of their sentences, it is because they continue to proclaim their innocence. According to Shannon Agofsky’s wife, her lawyers recommended she accept Biden’s pardon. But the 50-year-old refused, because as a death row inmate, he has substantial legal support for his appeals.
