President Joe Biden announced Monday that he will commute the sentences of 37 of 40 prisoners on federal death row, including a former New Orleans police officer, Len Davis, who became a symbol of corruption three decades ago during the city's bloodiest era.
Once known as the "Desire Terrorist," Davis, 60, will see his sentence converted to life in prison without parole.
In the 1990's, he spearheaded a cop-led crime ring that slung cocaine from a Franklin Avenue warehouse, stole cars, protected drug dealers and arrested innocent people. On Oct. 13, 1994, those actions came to a head with a deadly hit on Kim Groves, a mother of three, outside her home in the Lower 9th Ward. A federal wiretap captured Davis during the setup and in the murder's aftermath, howling in approval.
Biden's action will spare Davis and three dozen others possible execution. The announcement came less than a month before Donald Trump is set to return to the White House with a pledge to resume federal executions after three years under a moratorium.
"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," Biden said in a statement.
But Biden added that he is "more convinced than ever" that the death penalty should no longer be used on a federal level, excluding those convicted of terrorism and mass killings.
Three men will remain on federal death row following has actions. Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers all carried out hate-motivated mass murder within the last decade.
Like most of those on federal death row, Davis has been imprisoned at a penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was among two people convicted in Louisiana courts who were spared under Biden’s action. A federal jury in Alexandria condemned Thomas Sanders, 67, in 2014 for the kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts 2010.
Low point for NOPD
In New Orleans, Davis epitomized a bleak period for the city's police force, a time of historic bloodshed across the city. Groves was among 421 murder victims in New Orleans in 1994.
She had just filed a civil rights complaint against Davis over the beating of a young man, Nathan Norwood, by Davis' partner, Sammie Williams.
Two years later, a jury convicted Davis of orchestrating her killing and sentenced him to death. A second jury did the same in 2005 after an appeals court tossed one charge, forcing a retrial of the penalty phase. An appeals court upheld his conviction and sentence in 2010.
"This went to the very root of police corruption," said former federal prosecutor Mike McMahon, who tried the case against Davis.
Some say the city has never fully reckoned with the damage that Davis and others caused. Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams' civil rights division has said it is reviewing hundreds of criminal cases that Davis touched during his tenure with the NOPD. Recently, that effort resulted in the release of three men accused of murder by Davis, decades after their convictions.
The killing of Groves and its aftermath
The complaint that Groves lodged against Davis was intended to remain confidential, but the officer soon learned of it.
FBI agents were already targeting Davis, who ran a protection racket for drug dealers at the time. FBI phone taps captured the officer tracking down Groves and ordering Paul "Cool" Hardy, to kill her. Agents were unable to prevent Hardy from shooting Groves to death on Oct. 14, 1994 in front of her home on Alabo Street in the Lower 9th Ward.
Kim Groves was murdered on orders of New Orleans police officer Len Davis.
Davis rejoiced after receiving confirmation that Hardy had carried out the hit.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” he shouted. “Rock, rock-a-bye.”
Hardy and Davis both received death sentences. A judge overturned Hardy's, finding him mentally incompetent. A third man, Damon Causey, was convicted of hiding the gun used to kill Groves and received a life sentence.
Within four months of Davis' indictment, New Orleans police officer Antoinette Frank killed an off-duty colleague and two workers at a Vietnamese restaurant in New Orleans East. Frank was condemned to death by a state jury. She remains the lone woman on Louisiana's death row.
The cases of Davis and Frank were notorious scandals in a low era for the NOPD, during which dozens of officers landed under arrest.
Then-mayor Marc Morial, whose first year in office coincided with Groves' murder, had just hired a new police chief, Richard Pennington, who would usher in an overhaul of the NOPD that coincided with steep declines from record bloodshed and violent crime.
On Monday, Morial said he supported Biden's move to commute the sentences of Davis and others, to halt a practice historically fraught with racial discrimination.
"It is a compassionate move ... but it also doesn’t save them the punishment of the crime," Morial said. "Len Davis is now going to just rot in prison, where he belongs. He can every day think about the havoc he has caused. He is being punished—and will be punished until his last breath."
Louisiana's Republican Attorney General, Liz Murrill, described Biden's move on Monday as "failing victims of heinous crimes and overriding the will of the people."
McMahon, the former prosecutor, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the outcome.
"It's a shame that justice was not allowed to follow its course under the law," he said.
At his 2005 re-sentencing, Davis said he preferred death to life in prison, according to reporting by The Times-Picayune. Then, Groves' family said they would rather see Davis spared.
New Orleans settles suit
A federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Groves' three children sat for years while Davis appealed his conviction. Shortly before the end of his second term in 2018, former mayor Mitch Landrieu announced a settlement in which the city agreed to pay $1.5 million to Groves' children over four years.
Kim Groves' son, Corey Groves, issued a statement on Monday.
“My family has been living with the nightmare of Len Davis for over 30 years. I have always wanted him to spend the rest of his life in prison and have to wake up every morning and think about what he did when he took our mother from us,” it read.
Jasmine Groves, who turned 13 a day after her mother's killing, has become a passionate advocate for police reform. She held what she described as a final public memorial this year for her mother in the Lower 9th Ward.
Jasmine Groves and NOPD superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick embrace at a town hall at Treme Recreation Community Center on April 9, 2024.
At a town hall that she helped lead in Treme in April, she said her mother was slain "for doing the right thing" as she described the phone call in which she learned that her mother had been shot in the head.
"My mom was planning my party. At 13, I was planning her funeral," she said.
At the event, NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick apologized for Kim Groves' murder and vowed the department would work to earn the public's trust. For some, the killing remains salient amid a pressing public debate over whether the NOPD is ready to be free from federal court oversight after a dozen years.
