Troy Davis amidst 11th hour plea to High Court
ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 20: Protesters for Troy Davis walk through downtown Atlanta before gathering on the steps of the Georgia Capitol building on September 20, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. / Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images
Updated 7:22 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON - Troy Davis, facing death in Georgia, filed an eleventh-hour plea asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Georgia authorities from executing him for the murder of an off-duty police officer. Georgia prison officials are waiting for the court's decision before moving forward with the execution, which had been scheduled for 7 p.m. EDT. No order has been issued by the high court.
The last-ditch effort came after state officials refused to grant Davis a reprieve in the face of calls for clemency from former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and others.
President Barack Obama is refusing to weigh in on the pending execution of Davis.
Less than half-hour before Davis' scheduled execution Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement saying that Obama has long worked to ensure accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system especially in capital cases. But Carney said it would not be appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution.
The high court previously granted Davis a stay of execution in 2008 and ordered a court hearing the following year to give Davis a chance to establish his innocence. A federal judge said Davis had failed to do so, and the justices refused to review that finding.
Davis' supporters held vigils outside Georgia's death row and as far away as London and Paris.
His offer to take a polygraph test was also rejected. So was his request for the pardons board to give him one more hearing. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal.
Davis was convicted of killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989. His attorneys say seven of nine key witnesses against him have disputed all or parts of their testimony, but state and federal courts have repeatedly ruled against granting him a new trial.
Davis' supporters tried increasingly frenzied measures, urging prison workers to stay home and even posting a judge's phone number online, hoping people will press him to put a stop to the 7 p.m. lethal injection. But mostly, they declared "I am Troy Davis" on signs, T-shirts and the Internet, hoping to sway authorities.
"They say death row; we say hell no!" a crowd of about 200 chanted outside the Jackson prison where Davis was to be executed.
Many of the roughly 150 demonstrators in Paris carried signs emblazoned with Davis' face. "Everyone who looks a little bit at the case knows that there is too much doubt to execute him," Nicolas Krameyer of Amnesty International said at the protest.
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Davis' execution has been stopped three times since 2007, but on Wednesday the 42-year-old appeared to be out of legal options.
As his last hours ticked away, an upbeat and prayerful Davis turned down an offer for a special last meal as he met with friends, family and supporters.
"Troy Davis has impacted the world," his sister Martina Correia said at a news conference. "They say, `I am Troy Davis,' in languages he can't speak."
Correia, who is battling breast cancer and using a wheelchair as she helps coordinate rallies and other events, called on people to push for change in the justice system. Then she said, "I'm going to stand here for my brother," and got up with help from people around her.
His attorney Stephen Marsh said Davis would have spent part of Wednesday taking a polygraph test if pardons officials had taken his offer seriously.
"He doesn't want to spend three hours away from his family on what could be the last day of his life if it won't make any difference," Marsh said.
Amnesty International says nearly 1 million people have signed a petition on Davis' behalf. His supporters include former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, a former FBI director, the NAACP, several conservative figures and many celebrities, including hip-hop star Sean "P. Diddy" Combs."I'm trying to bring the word to the young people: There is too much doubt," rapper Big Boi, of the Atlanta-based group Outkast, said at a church near the prison.
The U.S. Supreme Court gave Davis an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence in a lower court last year, though the high court itself did not hear the merits of the case.
He was convicted in 1991 of killing MacPhail, who was working as a security guard at the time. MacPhail rushed to the aid of a homeless man who prosecutors said Davis was bashing with a handgun after asking him for a beer. Prosecutors said Davis had a smirk on his face as he shot the officer to death in a Burger King parking lot in Savannah.
No gun was ever found, but prosecutors say shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting for which Davis was convicted.
Witnesses placed Davis at the crime scene and identified him as the shooter, but several of them have recanted their accounts and some jurors have said they've changed their minds about his guilt. Others have claimed a man who was with Davis that night has told people he actually shot the officer.
"Such incredibly flawed eyewitness testimony should never be the basis for an execution," Marsh said. "To execute someone under these circumstances would be unconscionable."
State and federal courts, however, have repeatedly upheld Davis' conviction. One federal judge dismissed the evidence advanced by Davis' lawyers as "largely smoke and mirrors."
"He has had ample time to prove his innocence," said MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris. "And he is not innocent."
The latest motion filed by Davis' attorneys in Butts County Court disputes testimony from the expert who linked the shell casings to the earlier shooting involving Davis, and challenged testimony from two witnesses. Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson rejected the appeal, and prosecutors said the filing was just a delay tactic.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which has helped lead the charge to stop the execution, said it was considering asking President Barack Obama to intervene.
Obama cannot grant Davis clemency for a state conviction. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said he could halt the execution by asking for an investigation into a federal issue if one exists.
The White House has not commented on the case, and when asked about it this week, press secretary Jay Carney said that he hadn't spoken with Obama about it.
Dozens of protesters outside the White House called on the president to step in. "The fact that the White House hasn't addressed this issue is completely disrespectful," college student Talibah Arnett said.
Davis was not the only U.S. inmate scheduled to die Wednesday evening. In Texas, white supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was headed to the death chamber for the 1998 dragging death of a black man, James Byrd Jr., one of the most notorious hate crime murders in recent U.S. history.
Davis' best chance may have come last year, in a hearing ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the first time in 50 years that justices had considered a request to grant a new trial for a death row inmate.
The high court set a tough standard for Davis to exonerate himself, ruling that his attorneys must "clearly establish" Davis' innocence — a higher bar to meet than prosecutors having to prove guilt. After the hearing judge ruled in prosecutors' favor, the justices didn't take up the case.
The planned execution has drawn widespread criticism in Europe, where politicians and activists made last-minute pleas for a stay. A vigil was planned outside the U.S. Embassy in London.
Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who secured Davis' conviction in 1991, said he was embarrassed for the judicial system — not because of the execution, but because it has taken so long to carry out.
"What we have had is a manufactured appearance of doubt which has taken on the quality of legitimate doubt itself. And all of it is exquisitely unfair," said Lawton, who retired as Chatham County's head prosecutor in 2008. "The good news is we live in a civilized society where questions like this are decided based on fact in open and transparent courts of law, and not on street corners."
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He is the human equivalent of silly bandz.
Stop listening to the frenzied media, Troy Davis was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt (doubt will always exist). All the supposedly "new evidence" being pushed by the NAACP has already been heard before multiple appellate level courts, including the Supreme Court. It was rejected because it had no merit. The recanted testimonies are the fabrications of people who simply felt guilty for sentencing a man to the death penalty. The NAACP simply went around 10 years after the trial and asked people to recall the specific events from 10 years earlier. The media won't tell you this, but there was strong evidence against Davis (i.e. shell casings matched another set of shell casing from another shooting he committed earlier that night).
This death sentence needs to be carried out to satisfy justice for MacPhail. The true danger to justice is to let it be impeded by whoever yells the loudest in the public square. We can't absolve people of guilt simply because some people feel bad about it the consequences of justice.
Sad day for advocates against capital punishment on the whole.