In a shocking reversal, two death row inmates who were spared capital punishment by Joe Biden say they don't want clemency.
Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis are challenging Biden's move, which they fear could undermine their efforts to overturn their convictions on appeal.
Both men are on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, and each maintains their innocence.
They fear that having their sentences reduced to life without parole will lower the level of scrutiny courts must apply to their cases.
Agofsky was convicted for stomping another inmate to death while incarcerated in Texas for a separate murder and kidnapping of a bank president. Davis, a former New Orleans cop, was found guilty of hiring a hitman to kill a woman who filed a complaint against him.
In one of his last actions as president, Biden commuted the sentences of nearly every federal death row inmate, sparking furious backlash from the families of victims. But Biden also blindsided Agofsky and Davis, who say they do not want - and never asked - to be taken off death row.
"The defendant never requested commutation. The defendant never filed for commutation," a filing from Arofsky's lawyers says. "The defendant does not want commutation, and refused to sign the papers offered with the commutation."
“He doesn’t want to die in prison being labeled a cold-blooded killer,” his wife, Laura Agofsky, told NBC News.
Meanwhile, Davis "has always maintained his innocence and argued that federal court had no jurisdiction to try him for civil rights offenses," his filing says.
Other beneficiaries of Biden's clemency have responded by demanding even greater relief than Biden provided. Brandon Council, who was convicted of murdering two bank tellers in cold blood, has asked for a "compassionate release" since Biden's announcement.
The lame duck president made exceptions for three of the most infamous criminals on death row: Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof and Tree of Life synagogue killer Robert Bowers.
Biden's critics have accused him of moral hypocrisy, arguing he drew an arbitrary distinction between those he spared and those he did not - while opening up old wounds for victims just before Christmas.
"I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level," Biden said at the time. "In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."
A 1927 Supreme Court ruling found that a convict's consent is not needed for a president to grant pardons. Unfortunately for the victims, Biden's pardons cannot be reversed by President-elect Trump, either.
