It will take 5 Supreme Court judges to grant a “stay” in the Troy Davis Case…Stay tuned let’s see what happens.
Despite last-minute interventions by the US Supreme court, a Georgia parole board denied 42-year-old Troy Davis’ petition for clemency.
Davis’ attorneys have pleaded their client’s case to the parole board for years and then for three hours yesterday. Their argument is “Davis would be sent to death under an “enormous cloud of doubt” about his guilt.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of shooting police officer Mark MacPhail to death in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. MacPhail, who was working a second job as a security guard, was shot to death as he went to the aid of a homeless man being attacked by Davis and Sylvester “Redd” Coles in a parking lot.
MacPhail was shot in the heart and face by a black man in a white shirt, according to witnesses. The officer died instantly before he could draw his weapon. Davis was wearing a white shirt that night., however, there is little and/or no evidence to support his guilty verdict.
Earlier that day, Davis was involved in the shooting of another man during a road rage incident. That victim survived his injuries.
On August 19, Coles, went to police and implicated Davis in MacPhail’s killing. That same evening, one of Davis’ sisters drove Davis to Atlanta in an attempt to evade arrest.
Late Monday, Davis’ sister, Martina Correia, said the family was “just praying for a good outcome.”
“He’s guilty,” MacPhail’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, said. “We need to go ahead and execute him.”
Calls for Davis to be spared execution have been made by numerous dignitaries, including former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, former FBI Director William Sessions, former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher and Larry Thompson, the former deputy U.S. attorney general. Davis’ advocates, including Amnesty International and the NAACP, have used social media to rally worldwide support. Last week, Davis’ supporters presented the parole board with the names of more than 663,000 people asking that Davis be granted clemency. Their efforts have been to no avail and fallen on deaf ears.
Davis is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday (tomorrow) at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.
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