"This is the fourth time Mr. Davis has faced the death penalty. The state parole board granted him a stay in 2007 as he was preparing for his final hours, saying the execution should not proceed unless its members “are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.” The board has since added three new members.
In 2008, his execution was about 90 minutes away when the Supreme Court stepped in. Although the court kept Mr. Davis from execution, it later declined to hear the case.
In the week before his third execution date, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of execution to consider arguments from his lawyer that new testimony that could prove his innocence had not been considered.
The appeals court denied the claim but allowed time for Mr. Davis to take his argument directly to the Supreme Court, which ordered a federal court to once again examine new testimony.
But in June, a federal district court judge in Savannah said his legal team had failed to demonstrate his innocence, setting the stage for this latest execution date."
REPORTER KIM SEVERSON: THE NEW YORK TIMES;
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"Rejecting pleas by Mr. Davis’s lawyers that shaky witness testimony and a lack of physical evidence presented enough doubt about his guilt to spare him death, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled on Tuesday morning that Mr. Davis, 42, should die for killing Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer, in a Savannah parking lot in 1989," the New York Times story by reporter Kim Severson published earlier today under the heading, "Georgia Pardons Board Denies Clemency for Death Row Inmate," begins.
"“He has had ample time to prove his innocence, and he is not innocent,” said Mr. MacPhail’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris. “We have laws in this land so that there is not chaos. We are not killing Troy because we want to. We’re trying to execute him because he was punished,” the story continues.
"She, Mr. MacPhail’s mother and the couple’s two grown children were tearful after the hearing on Monday, pleading exhaustion.
“I’m not for blood. I’m for justice,” said his mother, Anneliese MacPhail. “We have been through hell, my family.”
The case has been a slow and convoluted exercise in legal maneuvering and death penalty politics. It has included last-minute stays and a rare Supreme Court decision.
Because Georgia’s governor has no power to stay executions, the parole board was the last hope for Mr. Davis.
“I don’t see any avenues to the Supreme Court,” said Anne S. Emanuel, a law professor at Georgia State University who has formally reviewed the case and found it too weak to merit the death penalty. “There’s nothing else apparent.”
The last-ditch effort to spare Mr. Davis’s life produced a widespread reaction among people who believe there was too much doubt to execute him.
More than 630,000 letters asking the board to stay the execution were delivered by Amnesty International last Friday. The list of people asking that the Georgia parole board offer clemency included President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 51 members of Congress, entertainment figures like Cee Lo Green and death penalty supporters, including William S. Sessions, a former F.B.I. director.
On Friday, more than 3,000 people gathered at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, in the heart of Martin Luther King Jr.’s former neighborhood, for a prayer vigil and protest.
This is the fourth time Mr. Davis has faced the death penalty. The state parole board granted him a stay in 2007 as he was preparing for his final hours, saying the execution should not proceed unless its members “are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.” The board has since added three new members.
In 2008, his execution was about 90 minutes away when the Supreme Court stepped in. Although the court kept Mr. Davis from execution, it later declined to hear the case.
In the week before his third execution date, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of execution to consider arguments from his lawyer that new testimony that could prove his innocence had not been considered.
The appeals court denied the claim but allowed time for Mr. Davis to take his argument directly to the Supreme Court, which ordered a federal court to once again examine new testimony.
But in June, a federal district court judge in Savannah said his legal team had failed to demonstrate his innocence, setting the stage for this latest execution date.
Lawyers for Mr. Davis on Monday laid out a case of mistaken identity. Information was presented from several witnesses who said they had been pressured by the police and changed their testimony, although others stood by their original testimony.
Another witness implicated the man who first identified Mr. Davis another gunman to the police.
Throughout the ups and downs of the case, members of both families have attended all the legal proceedings.
Mr. Davis’s sister, Martina Correia, a former soldier who made saving him her life’s work and who is weak from fighting breast cancer, was in the hearing Monday.
So were members of Mr. MacPhail’s family, who testified toward the end of the hearing.
“A future was taken from me,” said his daughter, Madison, 24. “Not just my father. The future we would have had together as a family.”
She said she would be at the execution, along with her brother, Mark, 22.
Anneliese MacPhail will not. But she welcomes it.
“It sounds terrible but I can close this book,” she said. “I can finally get peace. I can never get closure, but I can get peace.”"
The story can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/us/troy-davis-is-denied-clemency-in-georgia.html?_r=1&emc=na
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
