TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (KNWA/KFTA) — A prisoner who killed a man and a fellow inmate in 2004 and had his death sentence commuted by President Joe Biden refuses to sign his paperwork accepting the clemency action.
Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, another inmate at the Indiana prison who also had his death sentence commuted, believe the life sentences put them at a legal disadvantage with them planning to seek appeals based on claims of innocence.
Shannon Agofsky (right) and his brother Joseph Agofsky (left) in undated photos (Courtesy: KOLR)
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Agofsky, 53, an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., filed an emergency motion on Dec. 30 in Indiana’s Southern District seeking an injunction to block his death sentence commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“To commute his sentence now, while the defendant has active litigation in court, is to strip him of the protection of heightened scrutiny,” Shannon Agofsky said in a handwritten filing. “This constitutes an undue burden, and leaves the defendant in a position of fundamental unfairness, which would decimate his pending appellate procedures.”
In the filing, Shannon Agofsky said he never requested, filed or wanted commutation and refused to sign the papers offered.
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Shannon Agofsky’s wife, Laura Agofsky told NBC News in a phone call that having his sentence commuted was “not a win for him” because she believes there is evidence that can prove he is innocent.
“He doesn’t want to die in prison being labeled a cold-blooded killer,” Laura Agofsky said.
Shannon Agofsky was given a death sentence in 2004 for killing Luther Plant, an inmate at an Orange, Texas prison.
Plant was beaten, kicked and stomped to death in the recreation area of the prison.
Shannon Agofsky was already serving a life sentence for robbing a bank in Noel, Mo., and murdering the bank’s president, Dan Short of Sulphur Springs, in 1989, according to the Associated Press.
Shannon Agofsky, 18 at the time, and his brother Joseph Agofsky were convicted in federal court in Missouri for conspiracy, armed bank robbery and using a firearm to rob the State Bank of Noel on Oct. 6, 1989. Both received life sentences.
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According to authorities, the Agofskys kidnapped Short from his home in rural Benton County, drove him to the bank and forced him to open the vault, the Associated Press reported at the time. Around $71,000 was taken from the vault.
They were later charged with first-degree murder in Oklahoma in connection with Short’s death who was found five days after the robbery in Grand Lake near Grove in Delaware County. His death was ruled a drowning.
Short was gagged and tied up with duct tape, bound to a chair, weighed down with a concrete block and chain hoist, and thrown off Cowskin Bridge. Officials said Short was still alive when he went into the lake, according to NewsNation affilaite KSNF.
While Shannon Agofsky was convicted of murder, Joseph Agofsky’s trial ended in a mistrial.
Biden commuted 37 of the 40 federal death row prisoners.
“I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden said in a news release announcing the commutation. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Robert D. Bowers, who was the gunman at the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Dylann Roof, who opened fire in 2015 opened fire at a South Carolina church, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is one of the two brothers who carried out the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, all still can face execution.
