Double Murderer Pushes for Release Days After Sentence Reduced in South Carolina Bank Heist Case

Race Day Live – A convict jailed for mercilessly slaying two female bank employees is pleading for an early release from behind bars just days after President Biden commuted his death sentence .

Now, in a stunning twist, Brandon Council, 38, received a federal death penalty verdict on October 3, 2019, following his conviction for the brutal murders during a 2017 bank heist in South Carolina. He is now among the 37 death row inmates who will instead face life without parole after Biden revoked their capital punishments.

Now, Council’s lawyers are demanding he be released after being subjected to “severe, unnecessary, and unjustifiable psychological harm” in solitary confinement since November 2019 and is hoping for a ‘compassionate release.’

The motion stated: “The petitioner’s subjection to torture is the subsequent result of the petitioner’s sentence to death, however, the additional punishment of solitary confinement which is the cause of the psychological harm is in no manner statutorily authorized, mandated, or required by the petitioner’s sentence to death.”

“Within the jurisdiction of the United States it is both illegal and unconstitutional to inflict or subject any person to torture as a punitive consequence for a crime a party has been duly convicted of,” it continued.

Derek Shoemake, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the District of South Carolina who served as a prosecutor in Council’s case, expressed to Fox News Digital that securing justice for the slain pair, Donna Major, aged 59, and Kathryn Skeen, aged 36, represented “one of the greatest professional honors” of his legal career. Post-Biden’s decision, Shoemake’s heart goes out to the grieving families of the victims.

“Donna and Katie were amazing women, wonderful mothers, and beacons of light in their community. Today my thoughts and prayers are with their families, and my heart aches for them as they process this news,” Shoemake expressed in a statement.

He also extended his thoughts and prayers to the team who “worked for more than a year” to secure justice for Major and Skeen, “ensuring a remorseless murderer received a sentence that spoke to the horrific nature of his senseless crimes.”

Council ended up killing the two people after he stormed into CresCom Bank in Conway, South Carolina, on Aug. 21, 2017, with the intention of robbing the business and killing employees. Council shot Major, the bank teller, multiple times with a revolver and then burst into Skeen’s office, where she served as the bank’s manager, and shot her multiple times while she hid under her desk.

Before escaping the bank, he stole keys to both victims’ cars, their bank cards, and over $15,000 in cash. He drove one of the vehicles to a motel he was staying at, packed his luggage, and fled.

“It is difficult to see a sentence wiped away from 400 miles away after it was legally imposed by a jury of men and women from South Carolina who spent weeks listening to evidence, deliberating, and carefully deciding the appropriate punishment,” Shoemake stated in the Post.

He also mentioned that it hurts the victims. The victims’ families “will celebrate yet another Christmas without their loved ones,” while Council is among the 37 federally convicted murderers “celebrating a political victory.”

Shoemake stated that his focus isn’t on the political debate surrounding Biden’s commutations but on the “legacy of love, family, and faith” that Major and Skeen embodied. “I pray for their families, as I so often do, and I pray for all the victims’ families impacted today,” he said.

In a White House statement announcing the commutations on Monday, Biden said he condemns the murderers and their “despicable acts,” and he grieves for the victims and families who have suffered “unimaginable and irreparable loss,” but he “cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

Only three inmates remain on federal death row as Biden’s presidency nears its end. They are Tree of Life Synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof, and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.