I Wondered Why Somebody Didn't Do Something, So I'm Asking for Your Help....

[Guest]

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[kf08]

Done!  Thanks Geoff, for posting this.

[cjp1973]

Just read this on CNN.com in regards to Troy Davis
Justices grant Georgia inmate's request to delay execution

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has granted a condemned Georgia inmate's request that his execution be delayed as he attempts to prove his innocence.
Troy Davis has always maintained his innocence in the 1989 killing of Officer Mark MacPhail.

Troy Davis has always maintained his innocence in the 1989 killing of Officer Mark MacPhail.

The inmate, Troy Davis, has gained international support for his long-standing claim that he did not murder a Savannah police officer nearly two decades ago.

Justice John Paul Stevens on Monday ordered a federal judge to "receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at trial clearly establishes petitioner's innocence."

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer supported the decision. Sonia Sotomayor, who was sworn in August 8 as the newest member of the high court, did not take part in the petition.

Davis' case has had a dramatic series of ups and downs in the past year. He was granted a stay of execution by the Supreme Court two hours before he was to be put to death last fall.

A month later, the justices reversed course and allowed the execution to proceed, but a federal appeals court then issued another stay.

The high court's latest ruling means Davis will continue to sit on death row.

Stevens said the risk of putting a potentially innocent man to death "provides adequate justification" for another evidentiary hearing.

His supporters in June delivered petitions bearing about 60,000 signatures to Chatham County, Georgia, District Attorney Larry Chisolm, calling for a new trial. Chisolm is the county's first African-American district attorney. Davis is also African-American.

Davis has always maintained his innocence in the 1989 killing of Officer Mark MacPhail. Witnesses said Davis, then 19, and two others were harassing a homeless man in a Burger King restaurant parking lot when the off-duty officer arrived to help the man. Witnesses testified at trial that Davis then shot MacPhail twice and fled.

But since his 1991 conviction, seven of the nine witnesses against him have recanted their testimony. No physical evidence was presented linking Davis to the killing of the policeman.

The Georgia Pardons and Parole Board last year held closed-door hearings and reinterviewed the witnesses and Davis himself. The panel decided against clemency.

MacPhail's mother, Annaliese, told CNN at the time, "This is what we were hoping for, and I hope pretty soon that we will have some peace and start our life, especially my grandchildren -- my grandson and granddaughter. It has overshadowed their lives."

After the justices in October refused to grant a stay of execution, Davis' sister, Martina Correia, told CNN she was "disgusted" by the decision.

"It doesn't make any sense," she said. "We are praying for a miracle or some kind of intervention. We will regroup and fight. We will never stop fighting. We just can't be discouraged. The fight is not over till it's over."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas objected to the court's decision Monday, calling it a "fool's errand."

"Petitioner's claim is a sure loser," wrote Scalia. "Transferring his petition to the [federal] District Court is a confusing exercise that can serve no purpose except to delay the state's execution of its lawful criminal judgment."

Ten days after the high court refused last October to intervene, a federal appeals court in Georgia granted a temporary stay of execution. Since then, further appeals by Davis' legal team have dragged on for nearly a year.

Prominent figures ranging from the pope to the musical group Indigo Girls have asked Georgia to grant Davis a new trial. Other supporters include celebrities Susan Sarandon and Harry Belafonte; world leaders such as former President Jimmy Carter and former Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and former and current U.S. lawmakers Bob Barr, Carol Moseley Braun and John Lewis.

[kf08]

Thanks so much for posting this.  I hadn't heard this news and I thought the article gave a very good summation of this complicated situation.  Obviously, public support is growing. 

[Peter S]

so, his appeal for clemency having been denied, it seems Troy Davis will be put to death tomorrow September 21st, 3 years to the day after this thread was started by a Kiva Friend from Georgia.

I came across this powerful opinion piece on CNN just now, by a former US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia , Bob Barr:

Only the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stood between life and death for Troy Anthony Davis, and the core principles of American jurisprudence should have been the board's guide. But the board ignored those principles in denying Davis clemency
....
The U.S. Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of ordering a lower court to conduct an evidentiary hearing in the case because of the witness recantations and the absence of hard evidence. But in that hearing, the federal judge established a much higher standard of proof than the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. After finding -- astonishingly for the first time -- that executing an innocent man is unconstitutional, the court then required Davis to prove that he was innocent.

Proving innocence is far more difficult than establishing doubts as to one's guilt and flips our system of criminal jurisprudence on its head. Instead of the American system's presumption of innocence and a requirement that the state prove guilt, Davis' evidentiary hearing began with the court presuming guilt and required the condemned to prove his innocence.
....
Imposing a death sentence on the skimpiest of evidence does not serve the interest of justice. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles did not honor the standards of justice on which all Americans depend by granting clemency. In doing so, it will allow a man to be executed when we cannot be assured of his guilt.
That was the final admirable principle standing between Davis and his scheduled death by lethal injection Wednesday. And the parole board did not uphold it.



and I was struck by this from a piece in The Atlantic, by the distinguished legal analyst Andrew Cohen:

Whether the trial witnesses against him were lying then or are lying now, by fighting against his requested relief Georgia is saying that its interest in the finality of its capital judgments is more important than the accuracy of its capital verdicts.

Peter

[Jill]

Just came back in for a few minutes and was glad to see that someone, that you, Peter, posted about this.

I'd read about it this morning and actually saw Barr's commentary a few hours later and just felt sick about the whole thing, particularly given the fairly substantial chance that Troy Davis didn't do anything wrong at all but is going to die tomorrow, anyway.  I couldn't think of a damn word to say about it that I thought would make any difference.

So, I just wanted to say thanks, my one-time friend, for caring enough to at least note it here, for having there be someone at least someone here saying something.  It feels important that there was.

Jill

[Jill]

Troy Davis' Sister Recounts Last Moments With Executed Brother

This is a hard song to listen to.   I can pretty much guarantee you, though, that however hard it may be to listen to isn’t even in the same solar system of “hardness” as it has to be for the people still having to live in a world, in this case, in a country and in a system where the message of this song rings, still, way too and (for many of us) incredibly, almost impossibly and so incomprehensibly true.



I suppose I'd better reiterate that, of course, I have no personal knowledge of whether Troy Davis, in fact, was innocent or guilty, though I sure have some really strong doubts about the latter.  Only some of those doubts come from the case, itself.  


An awful lot, though, come from my experience as a criminal defense lawyer, from my decades-long knowledge and study of the system, and from my having learned of way, way, way too many instances where “eyewitness” testimony was manufactured, coerced, contrived and almost compelled by sometimes unscrupulous members of this or that police force who wanted, who “needed” to close a case and close it quickly.  And that's not even talking about how unreliable so-called "eyewitness" testimony has often proven to be for totally unrelated reasons.

(Do not, even for a microsecond, read this to mean that I’m saying that all or even most members of our police forces are racist or unscrupulous.  Or that eyewitness testimony is always or even usually unreliable.  Or, that by focusing on Troy Davis, I am somehow attempting to minimize the tragic loss of the MacPhail family.  I am not).  

World shocked by U.S. execution of Troy Davis
(Note the question posed at the end of the article).


EDIT: For whatever reason, I found that I wanted to come back to make it really clear that, for me,  this all has been much less about Troy Davis and his family (though I did find myself very much feeling for them when thinking about their situation and the very real possibility that he was innocent), and so very much more about the system, the attitudes and I’m afraid, the apathy that this story highlights and indicts.

In what I know is a real stretch when I think and say that this is at least tangentially related, I just came across a story* that I thought was pretty interesting and that I thought there was a chance that some of you might, too.

*http://madeinafreeworld.org/  (is the same website as)   www.slaveryfootprint.org
“What we are trying to do is make it so it’s not just someone else’s business, it’s everyone’s business,”…..

[kf08]

Troy Davis was buried today.  In a sad irony, he was executed three years to the date that this thread began.  In those three years, many of you stood up and fought for him to receive due process and spread the word to many more.  In honor of Troy and all who experience injustice, let's keep this thread going and share opportunities to fight for a more just future.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
--Dr. Martin Luther King

Thanks to all of you "somebody's" who did something. 

Gratefully yours,
Lynn