An Appeal to President Biden: Pardon Billie Allen
Biden’s decision to commute Allen’s death sentence deserves praise and gratitude, but the president should go even further—and free an innocent man.
Billie Allen, an artist and writer who has maintained his innocence since being sentenced to death in a sham trial.
Dear President Biden,
On December 23, I woke up to the news that you had commuted the sentences of nearly everyone on federal death row, including my friend, a man named Billie Allen, who has a strong case of innocence. I’m grateful that your action ensures that Billie will be spared the very real possibility of being executed under the incoming Trump administration. After all, Trump ended his previous administration with an unprecedented spate of federal executions. However, Billie deserves more than a commutation. As a wrongfully convicted man, Billie deserves a pardon.
Mr. President, I’m sure you are aware of the injustice I endured. I was arrested in 1989 at the age of 15 and charged with the brutal rape and beating of a jogger in Central Park. There was no evidence whatsoever connecting me and the four other young suspects to the crime, but after being deprived of food, drink, and sleep for over 24 hours, and subjected to immense pressure, my codefendants falsely confessed. You may remember that Donald Trump called for New York to reinstate the death penalty after our highly publicized and racially charged arrest. I spent my formative years in prison, and was released in 1997. Five years later, I was exonerated after the real assailant confessed.
Yet, even as I was being released in New York, in another part of the country, 19-year-old Billie’s ordeal was just beginning. Billie was arrested in March of that year, charged with bank robbery and murder. Billie had compelling evidence of his innocence, including but not limited to: negative results for traces of gasoline on his clothing, proving that he couldn’t have been inside the gasoline-soaked getaway van; negative DNA test results, excluding both the victim and Billie as a source of blood spatter found at the crime scene; and a statement from a shopping mall security guard who told the FBI that he saw Billie at the mall at the time the crime took place. Despite this, Billie was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
I was made aware of Billie’s story through my sister Aisha’s friendship with Billie’s sister, Yvette. Aisha would tell me how similar Billie and I are. We both love art and music, and share values of dedication to family, and empathy toward others in need. But above and beyond that, the core reason my sister wanted to introduce me to Billie was her conversations with him on the phone. “When Billie told me he was innocent, I could hear the same pain in his voice that I used to hear in your voice, Yusef,” she told me.
As someone who had been wrongfully convicted, I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, yet I’m also soberly aware that even those who committed terrible crimes can make pleas of innocence. But Billie never asked me to take his professions of innocence at his word; he urged me to do my own research. I began reading details about his case. I talked to supporters who are convinced of his innocence, including actor Gbenga Akinnage, Khaliah Ali (daughter of Muhammad Ali), and Ollie Gordon, a cousin of Emmett Till who was with you as you signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. I listened attentively to an episode focused on Billie’s case by record executive Jason Flom’s Wrongful Convictions podcast. I spoke to Billie’s legal team.
I uncovered a story that is all too common, and painfully familiar. Billie’s trial attorney neglected to present any of the evidence of his innocence that was available in the local police and district attorney’s own files, and never pursued other evidence that could have been uncovered with even minimum effort. Post-conviction, Billie has fought for over 27 years for this exculpatory evidence to be considered, but the courts have repeatedly denied him on procedural grounds, consistently prioritizing finality over fairness. As Billie’s attorney Michael Reyfield points out, “It’s easy to get convicted for something you didn’t do, but twice as hard, at times impossible, to right that wrong in our legal system.”
I am free now, with a loving family and a rewarding career, but Billie is not. I cannot forget that the axe of injustice continues to fall on the necks of so many innocent people.
Mr. President, you have stood firm against injustice many times in your long years of public service. You have demonstrated concern for those who were ensnared in a system that does not always deliver true justice. I urge you, before you leave office, to review Billie Allen’s case. Once you do, I am confident that you will agree with me: You should right the wrong in our legal system that Billie has endured, pardon him, and allow him to return home to his family where he belongs. This is Billie’s only hope for justice.
