President Joe Biden's historic commutations of nearly 1,500 people's sentences drew big headlines in December 2024 — but the real shock came when two recipients refused. Surprisingly, they're not the only ones to have ever done so.
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00:00President Joe Biden's historic commutations of nearly 1,500 people's sentences drew big
00:05headlines in December 2024. But the real shock came when two recipients refused. Surprisingly,
00:10they're not the only ones to have ever done so.
00:13Len Davis is one of two death row inmates who are refusing Biden's reduction in sentencing.
00:17According to The Washington Post, Davis says that he's holding out for appeals, which is
00:21why he protested having his sentence commuted from death to life in prison.
00:25Both men claim they're innocent and are trying to get their convictions overturned.
00:30The facts of Davis' case stand out as particularly disturbing. He was a police officer in the
00:35Desire Projects in New Orleans in the 1990s. However, there'd been complaints of brutality
00:39against Davis going back to 1987, usually related to intimidation and violence. He was
00:44eventually sentenced to death for hiring a hitman to kill a woman named Kim Groves in
00:48retaliation for filing a brutality complaint against him. In 1996, Davis was convicted
00:53and sentenced to death for ordering Groves' murder.
00:56According to Police 1, Davis protested Biden's commutation because the president was, quote,
01:01forcing an unconstitutional life sentence on him. Furthermore, in a motion filed in
01:05court, Davis wrote that he's always insisted he's innocent.
01:08The second person to refuse Biden's act of clemency was Shannon Ogofsky. Back in 1989,
01:14Shannon and his brother Joe robbed a bank in Knoll, Missouri. The bank manager went
01:17missing, too, and was found floating in a river with a chain hoist duct-taped to his
01:22Evidence couldn't completely connect his death to the Ogofsky brothers, but the brothers
01:25were found guilty of aggravated armed bank robbery, conspiracy, and use of a firearm
01:30while committing a felony. They were sentenced to life in prison.
01:33Joe died in incarceration from unknown causes in 2013, and Shannon received a death sentence
01:38in 2004 for the 2001 murder of a fellow inmate. However, Shannon filed an injunction against
01:43Biden's attempt to commute his sentence back to life behind bars.
01:47These 37 are never leaving prison, so he has not actually let anyone out of prison yet.
01:54In 1909, President William Howard Taft commuted the death sentence of Vuko Perovich, who had
01:58been convicted of murder, to life in prison. In 1918, however, Perovich asked for a pardon.
02:04He was refused, tried again in 1921, and was refused again. Then, in 1925, he protested
02:10his sentence being commuted altogether. Filing a legal document meant to question whether
02:14he was being detained on lawful grounds. It's unclear whether or not Perovich preferred
02:18to go back to death row, but this may have been his intention.
02:21In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson commuted the sentence of George Burdick, an editor
02:26for the New York Tribune. In a nutshell, the case involved Burdick refusing to answer questions
02:30from a grand jury regarding crimes he might have committed related to customs fraud. Burdick
02:34cited the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering, stating that his answers might incriminate
02:38him, and President Wilson intervened and pardoned him. Burdick was apparently an extremely stubborn
02:43person and refused the pardon. He then continued refusing to answer the jury's questions.
02:48The first instance of a criminal refusing presidential clemency came in 1830, when President
02:52Andrew Jackson pardoned George Wilson. Wilson and his co-conspirator James Porter had committed
02:57a crime that might not seem like it warrants the death penalty — robbing mailmen of mail.
03:02Both men pleaded not guilty at trial, but on May 27, 1830, they were sentenced to death
03:07for robbing and assaulting mail carrier Samuel McCrae. On July 2, Porter was executed. Wilson,
03:12however, withdrew his plea of not guilty. As a result, President Jackson pardoned Wilson
03:16on the condition that he served 20 years for other crimes he had committed.
03:20Strangely enough, Wilson refused. It's suggested he mixed up what he was being pardoned for.