Troy Anthony Davis Stay Of Execution Denied

With hours to go a devastating blow:

Davis’ only hope for a reprieve lies with the U.S. Supreme Court after the state high court by a 6-1 vote rejected his stay request Monday.

Supporters say the doubts merit a new trial. The courts have consistently disagreed.

A divided Georgia Supreme Court has already rejected his request for a new trial by a 4-3 vote. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has turned down his bid for clemency.

In a sign of the intense publicity surrounding the case, the normally reticent parole board said in a statement Monday that the five-member panel has spent more than a year studying the voluminous trial record after temporarily halting Davis’ execution last year.

“After an exhaustive review of all available information … the Board has determined that clemency is not warranted,” the statement said.

Twenty-two inmates have been executed — an average of about one a week — since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that lethal injection was constitutional. That decision ended a seven-month de facto moratorium on executions throughout the country.

More shortly.

NPR’s Morning Edition this morning:

The Southern regional director of Amnesty International, Jared Feuer, says that to this day, no one has looked at whether the evidence points to Davis’ innocence or to his guilt. He says the fact that seven witnesses recanted, combined with the absence of physical evidence or a murder weapon, raises too much doubt about whether the state is executing an innocent man.

“And that’s why for us, Troy Anthony Davis’ case symbolizes all that is wrong with the death penalty,” Feuer said. “You have questions of improper witness handling. You have procedural obstacles that get in the way of the truth. You have issues of race and, ultimately, you have a system that can’t go back and correct its mistakes,” he says.

The AJC:

Troy Anthony Davis now sits where he was little more than a year ago, hours away from being put to death by lethal injection.

In July 2007, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles stepped in and stayed Davis’ execution less than 24 hours before it was to be carried out. But on Monday, the board rejected pleas to reconsider its recent decision to deny clemency on grounds there is too much doubt as to whether Davis shot and killed a Savannah police officer.

Also Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court denied Davis’ request for a stay of execution. Justice Robert Benham cast the lone dissent.

Davis’ last hope to avoid his 7 p.m. Tuesday execution now appears to rest with the U.S. Supreme Court, where his lawyers have also asked for a stay of execution.