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Davis Denied Clemency By Georgia Pardon Board
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole has denied celemency for convicted killer Troy Davis.
This means he is set to be executed at 7pm on Wednesday.
Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of a police officer but questions have been raised about his guilt and some of the witnesses have recanted their testimony.
I think this kind of case illustrates my concerns about the death penalty. I have absolutely no empathy for a cop killer, so if Davis is guilty he should be punished. But it does appear there are questions about his guilt and once he is executed you cannot take it back.
On the other hand he has had a number of reviews by both state and federal courts.
4 Responses to “Davis Denied Clemency By Georgia Pardon Board”
I don’t know. I have not seen all the evidence and if these people changed their minds, why now after so many years?
…and what did they change their testimony too? I haven’t seen that either.
The system wins here and there is nothing we can do about it in time to matter.
Pray for his soul.
I must admit that work has prevented me from delving as deeply into the story as I’d like.
But my understanding is 7 of 9 witnesses have recanted and some have said they were coerced by the police.
Some who testified they saw him at the scene now say they did not.
Here is the wikipedia article on the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis_case
Here is another web site
http://legalcases.info/troydavis/
As I said, while I am a tough on crime kind of guy, I would prefer to err on the side of caution.
I’m a bit surprised you aren’t strobgly anti DP though Allen.
7 of the 9 witnesses either materially changed their stories or recanted is the way it should be reported because if I remember correctly the majority just seem to remember it differently after 20 years not say that they lied or were coerced or that Davis didn’t do it. On one a witnesses story changed but it would be even more damaging to the defendant than her previous testimony. The one major “recantation” was the jail house snitch. The thing about that testimony is he was such an obvious liar at trial that Davis was convicted in spite of his testimony not because of it. Removing that testimony doesn’t hurt the prosecution. The so called “coerced” testimony wasn’t in the trial for killing the cop but rather for the other person Davis was convicted for shooting the same day. Now that conviction did effect the trial for killing the cop since the forensic evidence (what they keep saying there was none of) linked the two shootings, but still it been incorrectly cited as belonging to a witness for the MacPhail shooting for which Davis is facing death. Go to a bus station at night and look at who is “hanging out”. That was the type of people who witnessed the shooting. What are the odds of any being particularly police friendly never mind being able to give the exact same story 20 years later? Also bear in mind no one testified to any “recantation”. The defense had chances to have the witnesses testify in court and only produced affidavit’s even when one witness was sitting outside a hearing. As the judge noted in his opinion sworn testimony in court where the witness could be challenged and questioned must be given more weight than an affidavit and even more so when the witnesses could be made available to do so. The affidavits may get you the hearing but then they must testify or they are worth little or nothing.
Recantations are nothing new, and are notoriously easy to arrange.(A small reward or a big threat will usually do the job-especially if the witness never wanted to risk testifying in the first place.)
I wonder how many people who are indignant over the Davis case will be indignant over this one ?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/justice/texas-dragging-death-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_t2