“I don’t think it’s justice.”

“I can say how I feel, but they won’t listen to me,” the 80-year-old told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution upon hearing the news.

Battle and Meier Jason Brown were the only Georgians on federal death row, and both received clemency. Their crimes, which were determined by jurors to be worthy of the death penalty, date to 1994 and 2002, respectively.

The commutations prevent new President Donald Trump from carrying out the men’s executions.

Anthony George Battle

In 1997, a federal jury in Atlanta found Battle guilty of killing 31-year-old D’Antonio Washington three years earlier. Battle was already serving a life sentence for sexually abusing and killing his wife, a U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in 1987.

Battle, whose lawyers said he was schizophrenic, hit Washington repeatedly in the back of the head with a ball-peen hammer on Dec. 21, 1994. Prison staff found Washington lying on the floor “with blood spurting from his head.” on details contained in an opinion from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Battle’s death sentence.

Employees found Battle standing next to a nearby vending machine with blood splattered on his clothing, the document said. The bloody hammer was found behind the machine.

Battle later confessed to killing Washington and told federal agents that “he was ‘frustrated’ in prison and tired of being bossed around,” the statement said.

He told investigators that he “picked up the hammer and decided to attack the first correctional officer he saw,” court documents say.

At the trial, three prison guards testified about how other inmates responded to Washington’s killing and the impact of a sentence of life without parole.

“When you went to policy enforcement, they (inmates) would walk around and say things like ‘Hammer time’ or ‘Don’t forget, I have 20 years.’ I will be with you every day.’ “Basically, these were threats to employees,” one of the guards said, according to court documents. “Once they get a long sentence or a life sentence, that’s all that can happen to them… Without the death penalty, all prisoners, they believe that nothing can happen to them.”

Battle was given the chance at the end of his trial to ask the jury to spare his life. Instead, he told them that Washington “died like a dog,” the AJC previously reported.

He was the first Georgia man to receive a federal death sentence since Congress reinstated the death penalty in 1988.

Jack Martin, an Atlanta criminal defense attorney who represented Battle in the trial, said he was glad his client no longer faces the death penalty.

“He was clearly mentally ill and should never have received the death penalty,” Martin told the AJC. “We are so grateful that President Biden understands this. This is just another example of why presidential power is so important.”

But Frederick Washington still finds it difficult to think about his son’s death. While he agrees that there are some cases where commutation of a sentence is warranted, the murder of his son is not one of them.

“You don’t have to be in prison. They don’t need parole – depending on what they did, they need to be killed,” he said.

Meier Jason Brown

On the morning of Nov. 30, 2002, Brown showed up at a post office in Flemming, about 30 miles southwest of Savannah, and stole $1,175 in money orders.

As the robbery unfolded, Brown stabbed postmaster Sallie Gaglia ten times as she attempted to defend herself. He left the 48-year-old woman dying face down on the floor, the AJC previously reported. Her purse, which contained her wallet and had been lying on a chair next to the desk, was missing.

Gaglia’s body was found by a customer.

Brown later admitted that he went to the post office to pick up his family’s mail, but later returned to rob Gaglia.

“At the post office, Brown asked for three money orders. As Gaglia turned around to use (a calculator), Brown pulled socks over his hands, jumped over the counter and — according to Brown — tripped, fell into her and cut her with his knife,” court records say. “He told police that it was at that point he decided to kill Sallie Gaglia because she knew him.”

Gaglia’s siblings testified at the 2003 trial about the terrible impact her murder had on the family. Her son, for example, was a senior in high school at the time and was “emotionally rendered unable to attend college and instead joined the Army,” court documents say. Her husband was in therapy and was so sad he couldn’t attend the court hearing.

“Sallie Gaglia was more than willing to help anyone, was an active member of her church, cared for (her) mother and was devoted to her sons,” an appeals court said in a description of her family’s testimony. “They reiterated that Gaglia’s murder was a great loss and that she could never be replaced.”

Several witnesses testified on Brown’s behalf, expressing disbelief at the murder charge, while the defense urged jurors to spare his life. The witnesses painted a grim scene from Brown’s personal life, describing a lifetime of neglect and abuse, with countless instances of drug use and violence being commonplace.

One of his teachers suggested that “he must have let out a lot of anger that he had bottled up over the years,” according to court documents.

Another witness was Liberty County Sheriff’s Detective Charles Woodall, to whom Brown confessed the murder.

Woodall said that “Brown felt remorse when he confessed to the murder – he sobbed and cried throughout most of the confession,” his victim’s court papers say – was over.”

In the end, the character testimony wasn’t enough for the jury and Brown was sentenced to death.