troy davis case Options

[brooklyneast05]

has anyone been following this?looks like bad news for him.

The decades-long, law-and-order-fueled trend toward restricting appellate avenues in criminal cases may be reaching its gruesome but inevitable conclusion in the case of Troy Davis, a death row inmate who apparently will be executed soon despite a series of post-trial revelations about his lack of culpability that ought to shock the conscience of even the most ardent supports of capital punishment.

Davis, who is black, was charged, tried and convicted in Georgia for murdering a white police officer. He was sentenced to death in 1991. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. There was no DNA. There was no murder weapon found on him. Since his trial, seven of the nine main prosecution eyewitnesses against him have recanted their trial testimony. Some of these witnesses claim police coercion or harsh interrogation tactics caused them to be untruthful at trial.

Moreover, a handful of witnesses have stepped forward to claim that another man has confessed to the crime. This “other man,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is one of the two remaining trial witnesses who, not surprisingly, still claims that Davis shot the officer. The final eyewitness (of the nine we are concerned with) initially told the police that he could not identify Davis at the crime scene before later changing his tune at trial and incriminating Davis. Even during this new age of DNA there has been no great movement to resolve these legal and factual conflicts.

the rest of the story

But Tuesday, the court refused to consider the constitutionality of executing a person when there is new, substantial evidence to show he was not guilty of the crime, thus opening the way for the state to reschedule his execution

i really don't understand how they're gonna kill him still

[*paperplane*]

Gotta love Georgia...

A few friends and I decided to take up the issue at Friday's Student Learning Center dedication. We first asked former Gov. Zell Miller if he would throw his considerable influence behind Davis.

After muttering something about "not believing anything [he] reads in the newspapers," he raised his fist into the air, yelled, "Keep up the good fight!" and marched away smiling.

Realizing that Miller has finally slipped into complete dementia, we spoke next to Sen. Johnny Isakson.

He told us that he knows the U.S. Supreme Court justices personally, that he has "complete faith" in our justice system, and that he thinks no one is ever wrongly executed.

When we asked him if he would ask the justices to reconsider hearing the case, he held up two fingers and mocked us, "Yes, I'll tell them two UGA students told me to!" After that, he quickly slipped away with a wide grin on his face.

http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/sto...d-3494253.shtml (column from my school's paper)

Follow the link and look over some of the comments. I'm disturbed.