Take action:
Troy Davis’
execution scheduled
The execution date has been set. On September 21, 2011, Troy Davis is scheduled to die. Davis, 42, was convicted of killing an off duty police officer, Mark MacPhail in 1989.
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During his trial nine witnesses testified that they saw Davis shoot MacPhail. And since the 1989 trial seven of those nine witnesses have recanted saying that they were mistaken and that Davis was not the shooter. Without any physical evidence linking Davis to the murder there are many prominent civil rights activists and even former President Jimmy Carter who believe Davis might be innocent.
The execution has been stopped before but it seems that now after all the back and forth, Troy Davis needs a political leader to grant him clemency to stop it. As the President of the NAACP, Ben Jealous told The Grio:
This case exemplifies why we give governors and pardon boards the power to commute death sentences. Two wrongs don’t make a right. All debates over the death penalty accounted for, our nation never intended for a person to be executed amid so much doubt.
I agree with Mr. Jealous. Davis’ case is exactly the reason why I am personally against the death penalty in all circumstances. The chance that an innocent person is executed is just too great a risk to take.
Amnesty International is calling on Georgia authorities to stop the execution of Troy Davis. You can sign their petition here.
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Georgia Sets September 21 Execution
For Troy Davis
The Department of Corrections in Georgia said Wednesday that Troy Anthony Davis will be executed at 7 p.m. on September 21, 2011 for the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. If the execution goes along as scheduled, advocates say it will be a devastating end to a troubled case.
There is no physical evidence that Davis shot the officer. The gun was never recovered, and 6 of the 9 eyewitnesses who testified against Davis have since recanted their stories.
Civil liberty groups including the NAACP, Amnesty International and the ACLU, along with individuals ranging from President Jimmy Carter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, believe Davis should not be facing the death penalty because of all the discrepancies that have come to light in the case.
Even pro-death penalty advocates, such as former FBI director and federal judge William Sessions and former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr have spoken out against executing Davis, citing “crucial unanswered questions” (Sessions) and a lack of the requisite fairness and accuracy required to apply the death penalty (Barr).
In June, human rights advocate and filmmaker Jen Marlowe wrote about Troy Davis for Colorlines.com with more details:
The “crucial, unanswered questions” include the fact that seven of the nine non-police witnesses later recanted or changed their testimonies, many stating that police coercion and intimidation led to their initial implication of Davis.
“After a couple of hours of the detectives yelling at me and threatening me, I finally broke down and told them what they wanted to hear,” witness Darrell Collins wrote in an affidavit in 2002. Collins was 16 years old the night of the murder, and had been interrogated by the police for hours without his parents present. “They would tell me things that they said had happened and I would repeat whatever they said.”
New witnesses have come forth identifying Coles himself as the shooter. “I saw Sylvester Coles—I know him by the name Red—shoot the police officer. I am positive it was Red who shot the police officer,” Joseph Washington wrote in a 1996 affidavit.
Now that there is a final date for the execution, Davis’ last chance is with the Georgia Board of Pardons & Parole, which has the power to grant him clemency.
The odds, however, are not in his favor. There’s considerable evidence of a racial imbalance in who the government decides to kill. Marlowe wrote about the statistics earlier this year:
Davis’ case has become an emblem for much of what is problematic about a capital punishment system that is riddled with racism, economic disparity and error. Public capital defenders do not have the resources to properly investigate or litigate their overburdened case loads. Those with the means to hire decent legal representation are unlikely to end up on death row. Over 130 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973, demonstrating just how many innocent people are convicted and sentenced to death.
According to a 2001 study from the University of North Carolina, a defendant whose victim was white was 3.5 times as likely to receive the death penalty in North Carolina than if the victim were non-white. A 2005 study in California found the defendant of a white victim three times as likely to be penalized by death. Growing realizations of these problems have led more and more states to question their death penalty policies. Earlier this year, Illinois became the 16th state to abolish capital punishment.
>via: http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/georgia_sets_september_21_execution_fo...
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Facts You May Not Know
About the Troy Davis Case
September 9, 2011
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World
Rev. Jesse Jackson and I, along with the Your Black World Coalition, are petitioning for clemency in the death sentence of Troy Davis. We are reaching out to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles and US President Barack Obama in our request that Davis’ case be reconsidered in light of overwhelming evidence that shows that he was not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Troy Davis has been on death row in the state of Georgia since 1991. He was convicted on August 19, 1989 of the murder of Georgia police officer, Mark MacPhail. On August 24, 2010, the conviction was upheld, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia declaring, “Davis is not innocent.” The judge did not say that Davis is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, implying that the standard for exoneration had been lifted unreasonably high.
Here are some other facts about the Davis case that lead us at the Your Black World Coalition to believe that justice has not been served. We are neutral regarding the guilt or innocence of Davis, but instead believe that all exculpatory evidence should be examined to determine if there is reasonable doubt as to whether or not Davis committed this crime. As we appeal to YBW Coalition members to sign our petition to free Davis, these are some facts that we’ve considered:
1) Of the nine original witnesses in the case, seven have either recanted or contradicted their original stories
2) Of the two witnesses who have not recanted, one of them was a suspect in the murder, Sylvester Coles. A witness even claimed that Coles bragged at a party about having killed an off-duty police officer.
3) Nine individuals have signed affidavits indicting that the murder was committed by Sylvester Coles
4) Troy’s date of execution has been set for September 21, 2011 – so we must move quickly.
5) The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles has originally stated that the execution would only take place if there is “no doubt” about the guilt of the man they are killing. We argue that there is tremendous doubt in the case of Troy Davis.
Please take action to help us save Troy’s life by signing our petition. All submitted letters will go to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, as well as President Barack Obama.