Rejon Taylor, one of the men on federal death row, has told Newsweek he is “overjoyed and grateful” after his death sentence was commuted by President Joe Biden last week.
Taylor was sentenced to death in 2008 for fatally shooting Atlanta restaurant owner Guy Luck in 2003. His lawyers said that Taylor, who was 18 at the time, had “discharged his gun in a panic” as Luck tried to grab a gun inside a van in Tennessee.
“This heart of mine was SURPRISED that Biden granted that many commutations,” Taylor, 40, said in an message sent through a prison email system.
“I resolved not to squander this act of mercy, this grace of life. I resolved to be part of Biden’s legacy—by the way I contribute to the betterment of society and prisons. Biden doesn’t realize this now, but his act of mercy will resound through me, bearing fruit that will outlive his time on this earth.”
Courtesy of Kelley Henry
Why It Matters
Taylor is one of the first Death Row inmates to respond to news last Monday that Biden was changing the sentences of the 37 condemned men to life in prison without parole.
The unprecedented move came less than a month before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office on January 20 after pledging to resume and expand the federal death penalty. Trump resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus in July 2020, overseeing 13 executions in the final six months of his first term.
America is increasingly divided over the use of the death penalty. Latest Gallup polling suggests 53 percent of Americans support it and 43 percent oppose—a significant change from 2010 when 64 percent of Americans supported it against 29 percent who opposed.
Announcing the commutations, Biden said: “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Three inmates remain on federal death row: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Charleston church killer Dylann Roof, and Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers.
What To Know
Taylor said he found out about the commutations early that Monday morning when he heard one of his neighbors in the Special Confinement Unit at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, talking about it.
“He caught the end of a report about it on NPR,” Taylor said. “He wasn’t sure if he heard right, but I immediately got out of bed, turned my TV on CNN, and eventually read about it on the banner crawling at the bottom of the screen… I was surprised!”
Taylor was among the inmates who had filed an application for clemency, but he had been losing hope as the end of Biden’s term neared.
“You know how I had been feeling about Biden, how bleak my outlook had been, so when I heard the news early that morning, I was OVERJOYED and GRATEFUL,” he said. “I’m so grateful to all the journalists, reporters, activists, advocates who helped made all of this possible.”
For Taylor, Biden’s decision not only means that his life is spared but it will also spare him the trauma of witnessing another execution spree.
As an orderly, he was among those who were permitted interact with the inmates on death watch during the run of executions at the end of Trump’s first term. His clemency petition said he was one of two men who could interact with those awaiting execution, serving as a “friend, confidante, and priest.”
After each execution was over, he packed up any belongings left behind in their death watch cells, viewing the job “as a small measure of dignity he could give to his fellow man.”
“I was oh so grateful, knowing that my friends who had exhausted all appeals, and all hope, were now safe from execution,” he told Newsweek. “I was relieved that I didn’t have to be on the frontlines again, being present for those slated for death, absorbing their trauma and undergoing the trauma of witnessing what happens to a person while facing their death date.”
In his clemency petition, his attorney Kelley Henry, a federal public defender, wrote that race had been the “deciding factor” in the decision to seek the death penalty and the almost entirely white jury’s decision to impose it.
A man who had served as an alternate juror in Taylor’s trial told a newspaper that some jurors had wanted to “make an example” of Taylor, saying: “It was like, here’s this little Black boy. Let’s send him to the chair.”
In the petition, Henry also wrote that Taylor has “profound remorse” and described his “exceptional efforts to better himself and to care for those around him, staff and inmate alike.”
Taylor’s case “is emblematic of all that is wrong with the federal death penalty,” Henry told Newsweek before Biden announced the commutations.
“We know the system is broken. We know that it preys on people of color, people with mental illness, people who are poor. Rejon was all those things. He was only 18 years old at the time of the crime for which he is on death row…. He’s just not someone who should be on federal death row. He’s never been in trouble before. He’s never been incarcerated before.
“It was simply a matter of race and ineffective counsel and mental illness that resulted in his being on death row.”
What People Are Saying
Henry told Newsweek: “We are profoundly grateful to President Biden for his extraordinary act of mercy and grace. His actions cement his legacy as a man of principle who values all human life.”
She said she hoped it would move Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to grant clemency to those on state’s death row. “The death penalty is a relic of the past and should be left there,” she said.
Biden said in a statement announcing the commutations: “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss.”
But he added he is “more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Trump responded to the commutations by writing on Truth Social that Biden “just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country. When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
In another post on the platform, he said he would direct the Department of Justice to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty as soon as he returns to office in January.
What’s Next
Trump cannot reverse Biden’s commutations, so Taylor and the other 36 men whose sentences were changed will not face execution.
The three who remain on federal death row have filed appeals and legal challenges to their death sentences, which will need to be resolved before their executions can proceed.
