2 Georgia men among federal death row inmates spared by President Joe Biden

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ATLANTA – Two of the federal death row inmates whose lives were spared by President Joe Biden are from the state of Georgia.

Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row on Monday morning, commuting their sentences to life in prison.

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These two inmates from Georgia are Meier Jason Brown and Anthony Battle.

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Battle was sentenced to death in 1997 for the killing of a prison guard. He was the first Georgia man to receive a federal death sentence after Congress reinstated the death penalty in 1988.

Battle was sentenced to death after killing 31-year-old security guard D’Antonio Washington. Battle, who was serving a life sentence for the 1987 murder of his wife, repeatedly struck Washington in the back of the head with a hammer at the federal prison in Atlanta.

According to the Atlanta Journal ConstitutionWhen Battle was given the opportunity at the end of his trial to ask the jury to spare his life, he told them that Washington had “died like a dog.”

Brown was sentenced to death in 2003 for the fatal stabbing of a postal worker.

Brown was sentenced to death by a federal jury in Savannah.

On November 30, 2002, Brown killed 48-year-old postmaster Sallie Gaglia during a robbery. He reportedly stabbed her ten times.

In a statement, Biden said, “I have dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system.”

“Today I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Biden continued. “These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has placed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

Biden also said he condemned the killings and mourned the victims, but was guided by his conscience and his experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president and president. He added that he was “more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

Biden’s move leaves just three federal inmates facing execution.

They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the racist murders of nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 2013 Boston Marathon bomber; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.