GA Parole Board Swamped With Petitions
Following up on my earlier post, this afternoon the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles received petitions with over 663,000 names seeking clemency for Troy Anthony Davis:
Davis’ supporters, led by Amnesty International and the Georgia chapter of the NAACP, appeared at the board’s offices and handed over 15 boxes filled with petitions, Amnesty Laura Moye said. The board, which will hear Davis’ clemency petition Monday, also was given letters signed by more than 1,500 legal professionals, more than 3,300 religious leaders, 26 death-row exonerees and 110 relatives of murder victims asking for Davis’ execution to be halted.
His legal appeals are exhausted and the chances of him winning another reprieve are slight. You can sign the petition here. Davis’s sister has started another directed to Chatham Count DA Larry Chisholm. In Atlanta there was a candlelight vigil tonight and will be a rally tomorrow (Friday).
Seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis have recanted. Time and again the witnesses said on the stand that fear of the police, fear of their own criminality catching up to them, and fear they’d face retribution caused them to lie on the witness stand.
Some characterize that as a big “red flag…impossible to overlook.”
Not me. For me it has the ring of truth. Won’t you please take a moment to consider the reasonableness of those fears.
Douglas A. Blackmon, author the Pulitzer prize winning book, Slavery by Another Name – The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, on how the legal system in the South was systematically used to coerce tens of thousands of Black men into brutal forced labor (what Blackmon calls “neoslavery):
Across the South, from Texas and Louisiana to the Carolinas, thousands of freed black Americans simply were arrested, often on trumped up charges, and coerced into forced labor. And that persisted right up into the 1940s, when I was still a boy. [...] There’s no way that anybody can read this book and come away still wondering why there is a sort of fundamental cultural suspicion among African-Americans of the judicial system, for instance. I mean, that suspicion is incredibly well-founded. The judicial system, the law enforcement system of the South became primarily an instrument of coercing people into labor and intimidating blacks away from their civil rights. That was its primary purpose, not the punishment of lawbreakers.
Read Blackmon’s book. More from him here, here, here, here, and here. Then tell me you’re still skeptical that those witnesses would tell the police what they wanted to hear out of fear.
My doubts are more than merely reasonable.
5 Responses to “GA Parole Board Swamped With Petitions”
Seven of the nine have not recanted. After 20 years some of their statements don’t match or they now say that they can’t remember. One main witness has changed his testimony but it has been ruled that the witness appeared to be lying when he testified anyway so it made no real difference. Please try and make the case without lying. It doesn’t matter how many times it’s repeated if it is misleading repetition doesn’t make it right. Your link misstates the facts. When judge Moore heard the appeal no one got on any stand. There were only affidavits submitted and no one gave any testimony.
No one got on the stand!!! Even knowing that sworn testimony given in court must outweigh affidavits and that one of the witnesses was even in the courthouse the defense elected not to have anyone testify.
By the way tell the seven blacks that served on the jury that it was a trumped up lynching.
So everyone in Georgia who has ever been convicted of killing a Police Officer is on Death Row or has been executed? Right?
So what about the lack of evidence in this case EElis? Would you sleep at night knowing an innocent person was put to death? This is happened several times and that’s good enough reason to get rid of the death penalty. If you value life then you’d reconsider your position. The former governor of Illinois learned this and abolished this barbaric institution because it was found DNA evidence cleared a few death row inmates.
Which discussion do you want to have here INDY. Do you want to talk Death Penalty, Davis, or innocence in a death penalty case? Because there was more than enough evidence to convict Davis. If it were not for the death penalty this guy would not be seen as even possibly innocent. And just as a point of fact DNA evidence almost never clears anyone. What happens is that the narrative of the crime the prosecution told at trial couldn’t of happened with that evidence. It establishes doubt but almost never proves innocence.
It’s time for Troy Davis to pay for his crime – past time….The media should post his arrest picture showing no remorse and smirking….I hope the execution goes as planned on Wed., too bad the electric chair has been banned…..He has used the state freebies long enough. Free meals, tv, etc. while MacPhil’s family has been denied justice..No new evidence to prove his innocence.