They were sentenced to death. But they don’t want President Biden’s commutation to life in prison

Two federal death row inmates are asking to be exempted from outgoing President Joe Biden’s order commuting their sentences to life in prison without parole, as they seek to appeal their cases and prove their claims of innocence.

The inmates, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, filed petitions in federal court on December 30, a week after Biden announced he would remove 37 out of 40 federal inmates from death row. The order did not include three inmates whose crimes included high-profile mass shootings or acts of terrorism.

While other inmates and their attorneys viewed the commutations as a godsend, Agofsky and Davis refused to sign documents acknowledging them, according to their separate handwritten petitions. The US Justice Department argued in court filings this week the inmates’ requests should be denied, saying the president’s power to grant a commutation is absolute, limited only by the Constitution.

Both inmates asked for the US Court in the Southern District of Indiana – which encompasses Terre Haute, where most federal death row inmates are held – to issue emergency orders blocking the commutations from proceeding, underscoring the complicated nature of both the commutations and the death penalty more broadly.

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