The "story" is astounding......and a sorry reflection on the American justice system.
AlterNet reports:
"Troy Anthony Davis is an innocent man on Georgia's death row. His lawyers believe it, his supporters believe it, even most of those who sent him to die believe it. Accused of killing a police officer in Savannah, Ga., in 1989, his conviction was based solely on eyewitness accounts from people who claimed to have seen Davis, then 20 years old, shoot police officer Mark Allen MacPhail to death in a Burger King parking lot. No murder weapon was ever found and no physical evidence linked him to the crime. Nevertheless, he was found guilty in 1991 and sentenced to die. Troy Davis would spend the next decade and a half on death row insisting on his innocence. Last summer, less than 24 hours before his scheduled execution, someone finally listened.
On the night of July 16, 2007, Troy Davis was facing death by lethal injection when he won a last-minute stay of execution by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. At a meeting that day lasting more than six hours, numerous people had asked the members of the board to spare Davis' life, among them Atlanta representative and civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis. In the world outside, Davis had the backing of countless anti-death penalty groups, Amnesty International, a handful of celebrities, and the Pope. But perhaps the most compelling support that day came from five of the original witnesses who had testified at Davis' trial. Sixteen years before, they had taken the stand for the prosecution; now they urged the board to save the life of an innocent man.
They were not alone. Of the nine original witnesses in the trial who implicated Davis, seven have recanted their testimony. Three of those seven have signed statements contradicting their identification of Davis as the triggerman. Two others who made claims that Davis had confessed to the murder later admitted they were lying. And other witnesses have since identified the shooter as another man altogether, a "thug" by the name of Sylvester Nathaniel Coles, who also happened to be one of the state's witnesses against Davis."
AlterNet reports:
"Troy Anthony Davis is an innocent man on Georgia's death row. His lawyers believe it, his supporters believe it, even most of those who sent him to die believe it. Accused of killing a police officer in Savannah, Ga., in 1989, his conviction was based solely on eyewitness accounts from people who claimed to have seen Davis, then 20 years old, shoot police officer Mark Allen MacPhail to death in a Burger King parking lot. No murder weapon was ever found and no physical evidence linked him to the crime. Nevertheless, he was found guilty in 1991 and sentenced to die. Troy Davis would spend the next decade and a half on death row insisting on his innocence. Last summer, less than 24 hours before his scheduled execution, someone finally listened.
On the night of July 16, 2007, Troy Davis was facing death by lethal injection when he won a last-minute stay of execution by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. At a meeting that day lasting more than six hours, numerous people had asked the members of the board to spare Davis' life, among them Atlanta representative and civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis. In the world outside, Davis had the backing of countless anti-death penalty groups, Amnesty International, a handful of celebrities, and the Pope. But perhaps the most compelling support that day came from five of the original witnesses who had testified at Davis' trial. Sixteen years before, they had taken the stand for the prosecution; now they urged the board to save the life of an innocent man.
They were not alone. Of the nine original witnesses in the trial who implicated Davis, seven have recanted their testimony. Three of those seven have signed statements contradicting their identification of Davis as the triggerman. Two others who made claims that Davis had confessed to the murder later admitted they were lying. And other witnesses have since identified the shooter as another man altogether, a "thug" by the name of Sylvester Nathaniel Coles, who also happened to be one of the state's witnesses against Davis."
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