Troy Davis decision postponed

The U.S. Supreme Court released a much-anticipated announcement on June 29 about the appeal of death-row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. A short statement said the Court had not reached a decision on whether to hear Davis’ appeal for a hearing on new evidence supporting his innocence. The Court will again take up the issue when it reconvenes in September.

Troy Davis

To millions around the world, Davis’ case highlights the lack of justice in the U.S. Long-established racist practices by police, prosecutors and judges, coupled with a lack of access to competent legal assistance, dooms many poor workers and people of color to false convictions and unequal punishment.

Davis was found guilty in 1991 of the shooting two years earlier of Mark Allen MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah, Ga., policeman. Of the state’s nine non-police witnesses at trial, seven have recanted or changed their testimony, many alleging police threats and intimidation prompting their false identification of Davis as the shooter.

No physical evidence was ever presented linking Davis to the crime, nor was the murder weapon ever found. Sworn statements of nine people not heard at the original trial implicate Sylvester “Red” Coles as being the actual shooter. Coles initially went to the police and fingered Davis.

Three times Davis has come within days and hours of being executed in Georgia’s death chamber. Yet every judicial or state authority has ultimately ruled that evidence of innocence is not sufficient to override procedural and technical restrictions imposed by the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Use of the Death Penalty Act.

Also on June 29, Davis’ supporters delivered over 60,000 petition signatures urging the new Chatham County District Attorney, Larry Chisholm, to reopen the investigation of MacPhail’s killing. Eleven thousand of the signatures come from Chatham County residents.

Chisholm, the first African-American DA, won election in 2008 on a platform that pledged to “increase a sense of fairness” in the office held for some 28 years by Spencer Lawton Jr. At least three other death penalty convictions pursued by Lawton have been overturned by higher courts because of prosecutorial misconduct and error.

Amnesty International, the NAACP, Georgians for an Alternative to the Death Penalty, and Davis’ family members encourage the public to call DA Chisholm’s office at 912-652-7308 and urge a new examination of Davis’ case. Go to www.gfadp.org for updates and to sign the online petition.