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News » November 28, 2008

Dead Man Waiting

For the second time, a court has stayed the execution of Georgia death row prisoner Troy Davis

By Alice Kim

Martina Correia, Troy Davis' sister, speaks next to Genevieve Garrigos, (L), president of Amnesty International France, during a protest to denounce the death penalty in the United States in Concorde, in Paris on July 2. Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991.

In an unprecedented move, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta recently stayed the Oct. 27 execution of Georgia death row prisoner Troy Davis.

On Oct. 24, the court said it would consider a new hearing on whether the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits the execution of the innocent.

In September, the U.S. Supreme Court halted Davis’ execution to consider the issue but then denied to hear the case.

“The case is extraordinary,” says Stephen Bright, president and former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, based in Atlanta. Last year, the Georgia Supreme Court also stayed the execution to consider the innocence claim, he says, but then denied it by a single vote, 4-3.

Now the federal court—applying the federal law regarding claims of innocence—has granted another stay to decide whether to order a hearing on the innocence issues.

In 1991, Davis, a 39-year-old African-American man, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of Mark MacPhail, a white, off-duty police officer, at a Burger King parking lot in Savannah, Ga. Davis was convicted based solely on witness testimony that contained many inconsistencies, according to a 35-page Amnesty International report released in February 2007.

With the federal court’s recent stay, Davis’ attorneys have 15 days to make their case for an appeal. The Georgia state’s attorney then has 10 days to respond. The outcome of these legal maneuvers was unresolved as In These Times went to press.

Since the original 1991 trial, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted. Many of them have stated in sworn affidavits that police coerced them to testify against Davis. What’s more, no physical evidence against Davis—such as the gun used in the crime—was ever found. Davis, who maintains his innocence, surrendered himself to the police in 1989 to clear his name.

He has received an outpouring of attention and international support, including from former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter. On Oct. 23, his supporters organized a Global Day of Action for Troy Davis. More than 35 cities around the world held marches, rallies and other actions opposing the Oct. 27 execution.

Martina Correa, Davis’ sister, says it has been difficult for her brother and their family to say goodbye to him twice, and to prepare for the state to execute him.

“Yet Troy remains prayerful, faithful and humbled by all the show of human kindness,” says Correa. “Our prayer is that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will rule in Troy’s favor and that no matter what happens, activists from around the world will stay focused on the bigger picture and that is the abolition of the death penalty.”

As of Oct. 31, Georgia was one of seven states to carry out executions in 2008. All but one of the 30 U.S. executions to date were in the South — 14 in Texas, four in Virginia, three in Georgia, two in South Carolina, two in Mississippi, two in Oklahoma, two in Florida and one in Ohio. At the same time, this fall, courts have granted stays of execution in at least a dozen cases — including Davis’.

Between September 2007 and April 2008, a national de facto moratorium was in place while the Supreme Court considered whether Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol violated the Eighth Amendment in Baze v. Rees. After the high court’s April 2008 decision that it did not, executions have since resumed and have taken place at a rate of at least one per week.

Almost half of the prisoners executed were African-American or Latino (47 percent), and most victims in those murders were white (59 percent). Additionally, no white defendants were executed in 2008 for the murder of an African American, according to October statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

In Texas, where the state carried out 14 executions since May, the DPIC anticipates more than 14 additional executions there by the end of the year. But Texas and the other Southern states carrying out executions are exceptions to a declining U.S. trend, as the death penalty faces increasing scrutiny.

As Correa says, “The road has been hard and uphill, and we still have a battle at hand.”



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  • Reader Comments

    The Troy Davis case underscores the cynicism and expediency that over time have become the major values of the system.  The initial refusal to redress the recantations of seven of the nine witnesses was based on two factors:  that they were not presented earlier, and that there were “too many recantations to be believable.” How many would be acceptable?

    State sanctioned murder has no place in a civilized society.  It implies that the life of someone you love can be “paid for” by taking the life of someone you don’t love.  The lengthy process prolongs the agony for victim’s failies and implies that vengeance is the best way to deal with grief.  Attempts to expedite the process by time frames for presenting newly acquired information fail to acknowlege the inherent flaws in an expedient rush to punishment.

    The death penalty does not deter crime and is more expensive than life imprisonment.  More importantly, it diminishes us as a society.  We are the only living creatures who plan, sterilize and ritualize the killing our own species.  And, it is done in the Bible Belt.  What happened to “Vengeance is mine, said the Lord.”

    Posted by Jean Hughes on Nov 29, 2008 at 12:15 AM

    Hi, Y’all !

    My,my ,my! Once again we have another example of how the death penalty process is broken.

    You know, I’d like to believe in the death penalty, especially when it involves the murder of a law enforcement officer. The basic laws of our society should be enforced and those who enforce those laws should be considered inviolate. If killing a policeman doesn’t merit permanent elimination from our society, then I don’t know what does.

    However, with that said, may I say that I feel that the death penalty process is flawed in ways that, well, have all been said before.

    Still, I have one question about the enforcement of our laws. Since when does taking a position of “OFF WITH HIS HEAD!”, and the prolific and capricious application of that position, constitute being tough on crime?

    Also, when witnesses recant, especially when they state that coercion was involved, doesn’t that indicate that there may, just may, be an element of reasonable doubt? What about the inconstiencies of the witness testimony? I’m not a lawyer but I do believe that if I were preparing to kill someone, I’d like to be sure that everything was in order.

    I’m sorry, but going forward with a case that has flaws in it, especially when the penalty is irrevocable, does not, in my mind, make one “tough on crime”. It makes one appear, oh, maybe...bloodthirsty, perhaps? Just a thought.

    Ta-ta!

    Posted by Aunty Rightwing on Dec 1, 2008 at 6:25 PM

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Appeared in the December 2008 Issue
Also by Alice Kim
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