Two prisoners among the 37 federal inmates whose death sentences were commuted last month by President Biden — a move that spares them from the death chamber — have taken an unusual stance: They're refusing to sign paperwork accepting his clemency action, NBC reports. Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, both inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., filed emergency motions in federal court seeking an injunction to block having their death sentences commuted to life in prison without parole. The men believe that having their sentences commuted would put them at a legal disadvantage as they seek to appeal their cases based on claims of innocence. The courts look at death penalty appeals very closely in a legal process known as heightened scrutiny, in which courts should examine death penalty cases for errors because of the life and death consequences of the sentence. The process doesn't necessarily lead to a greater likelihood of success, but Agofsky suggested he doesn’t want to lose that additional scrutiny. "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,” said Agofsky's filing.
Davis wrote in his filing that he "has always maintained that having a death sentence would draw attention to the overwhelming misconduct" he alleges against the Justice Department. He also wrote that he "thanks court for its prompt attention to this fast-moving constitutional conundrum. The case law on this issue is quite murky." Inmates face a daunting challenge in having their death sentences restored, said Dan Kobil, a professor of constitutional law at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Oh., who has represented defendants in death penalty and clemency cases. A 1927 U.S. Supreme Court ruling maintains that a president has the power to grant reprieves and pardons, and "the convict's consent is not required." There are instances of prisoners who have refused a commutation because they would rather be executed, Kobil said, but just like "we impose sentences for the public welfare, the president and governors in states commute sentences for the public welfare." Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center added that almost all inmates on federal death row were grateful for Biden's decision, "which is constitutionally authorized and absolute."
留言