Prisoners spared executions sue to be put back on death row

Two former death row prisoners have no right to challenge the decision from President Joe Biden that spared their lives, a court has been told.

Late last month Biden commuted the sentences of 37 individuals on death row to life without the possibility of parole.

Now two of those prisoners, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, are seeking to have their commutations blocked.

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Both prisoners argue that because they did not ask to be spared the death penalty, such a commutation cannot be legally granted.

But the Department of Justice has argued prisoners have "no authority to reject" the act of leniency.

Agofsky was in jail over the 1989 murder of a bank president. While behind bars, he stomped another prisoner to death.

For the second murder he was sentenced to death.

Davis was a New Orleans police officer when he hired a hitman to murder a woman who made a brutality complaint against him.

Both Agofsky and Davis have stated their innocence and argued the commutations would impact their appeals.

In a court filing, Agofsky described the mass commutation as a "publicity stunt enacted by President Joe Biden".

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

In death penalty cases, a doctrine of "heightened scrutiny" exists, which allows judges to act with an increased level of care and consideration, Agofsky argued.

By taking him off death row, any appeal would be done without "heightened scrutiny", he argued.

Agofsky described the mass commutation as "nothing but empty virtue signalling".

Davis, meanwhile, argued the Federal Court has no jurisdiction to try him for civil rights offences.

"Prisoner Davis has always maintained that having a death sentence would draw attention to the overwhelming misconduct by Department of 'Justice' in his case," he wrote in his handwritten filing.

Biden had issued a moratorium on federal executions during his presidency, citing his opposition to the death penalty.

By contrast, 13 prisoners were executed during Donald Trump's first term, all in the final six months of his presidency.

Trump has expressed his eagerness to resume executions in his second term in office.

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The prisoners not spared execution

Only three prisoners on federal death row were not granted commutations, all of which were guilty of high-profile acts of mass murder and terror.

Robert Bowers killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. 

Dylann Rooff killed nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

And Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was one of two brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 that killed three and maimed many others.

Prosecutors were granted an exemption to the capital punishment moratorium in a pending trial.

In that trial, a white supremacist murdered 10 black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. 

That man, Payton Gendron, has already been found guilty in a New York court and is serving a life sentence.

New York State does not have the death penalty.

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