Two federal death row inmates, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, are requesting to be exempted from President Joe Biden's order commuting their sentences to life in prison without parole. They filed petitions in federal court after Biden announced the commutation of 37 out of 40 federal inmates on death row, excluding those involved in high-profile mass shootings or acts of terrorism.
Agofsky and Davis refused to sign documents acknowledging the commutations, citing their innocence claims and the need to appeal their cases. Agofsky, convicted in 2004 for a murder he claims he did not commit, argued that a commutation would hinder his efforts to prove his innocence by depriving him of the scrutiny associated with death penalty cases.
