Troy Anthony Davis -- The Legal Process

11th Circuit Court of Appeals Grants Oral Argument for TROY DAVIS
December 9th in Atlanta, Georgia at 1pm

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10 Dec 2008

Troy Davis and the rhetoric of insanity

The Troy Davis case indicates just how subjective the legal system really is. The federal 11thCourt of Appeals deals with cases in Florida, Alabama and Georgia. A panel of three judges selected from this court considered the Davis case yesterday. Rosemary Burkett, a Clinton appointee with both Arab and Hispanic ethnic roots, would like to see a full airing of the facts surrounding the Davis case. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Burkett finds it troubling that 7 of the 9 original witnesses have changed their stories and that one of the 2 witnesses sticking to his story has allegedly admitted to killing Savannah officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

Davis became the prime suspect in the case when Sylvester Coles told the Savannah police department that Troy was the killer. According to media accounts, Judge Burkett is wondering why Coles was never considered as a suspect. It's bad enough that we may be on the verge of killing an innocent man, she told the court during yesterday's hearing, but "it's also possible the real guilty person who shot Officer MacPhail is not being prosecuted."

Why, Barkett asked yesterday, were none of the witnesses in the case shown a photo array including a picture of Coles? "It seems police were so anxious to get somebody that they didn't pursue Coles," Barkett observed.

Judge Stanley Marcus, also a Clinton appointee, was less outspoken than Judge Barkett, but the testimony he was hearing bothered him as well. Since the 1991 trial, 3 witnesses had signed statements saying that Sylvester Coles admitted to the crime over a beer or between tokes.

True, a single witness, Stephen Sanders, is sticking by his story. At the 1991 trial, Sanders said, "You don't forget someone who stands over and shoots someone."

However, as defense attorney Tom Dunn reminded the court yesterday, Sanders originally told police he wouldn't be able to identify the shooter. Memory usually gets fuzzier over time.

According to the Atlanta Progressive News, the hearing revolved around two questions: "First, given the evidence available Tuesday, is it likely a jury would not convict Davis? Second, did Davis exercise due diligence in providing new evidence?"

Susan Boleyn, Senior Assistant Attorney General in the State of Georgia, argued the status quo position. Troy Davis has presented no hard evidence of actual innocence, she told the judges. Davis's claims have been denied relief by the state courts, the 11th Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, she reminded the court. At some point you no longer get another bite of the same apple.

But when do you toss the apple core into the trash, and who decides?

Asked why 3 witnesses are primed and willing to testify that Coles privately confessed to murdering officer MacPhail, Boleyn rattled off a few theories. Coles might have been drunk or high on marijuana; or perhaps Coles was trying to impress his listeners with a bold lie.

Boleyn reminded the judges that the reliability of recanting witnesses has traditionally been held in low repute. The fact that a witness admits that they once lied under oath (for whatever the reason) should be enough to undermine their credibility.

Taken together, Boleyn's arguments boil down to this: yall can't prove your man is clean, so we get to kill him.

Boleyn was also critical of defense counsel for not bringing their concerns forward in a more timely manner. This raises an interesting question: what happens when defense attorneys don't file their briefs on time? Should the defendant suffer for the mistakes of the people charged with his defense?

Well, yes, if precedent is anything to go by, he should.

The smooth running of the judicial machinery trumps all other concerns. The law requires finality. You cant have witnesses changing their minds willy nilly, especially in a capital case. Therefore, it is generally agreed that witness testimony should be taken at face value and that once a witness speaks the words are set in stone. Recantations undermine the finality prized by the legal system.

Unless, that is, a case achieves the kind of attention the Troy Davis case is currently receiving. When both sides are free to make their arguments and the media is paying attention (sort of), the immovable object ("we can't execute a man who might be innocent") runs up against the
irresistible force of legal precedent ("a jury found him guilty and a string of courts have backed up their verdict, so hes a dead man").

Generally, a tie goes to the state. Not this time.

Does Susan Boleyn and her buddies at the Georgia Attorney General's Office know for sure that Sylvester Coles is innocent, Troy Davis is guilty, and the 7 recanting witnesses are all lying through their teeth? Of course not. How could they possibly know these things? They don't care because
they don't have to. Accused murderers are run through a complex game of musical chairs and when the music stops and they haven't found a seat, they die. We don't have to know for sure that you're guilty, nor do we have to care. Justice is defined as whatever the legal system decides to do. If a case proceeds through the proper channels justice has been served.

If Susan Boleyn worried too much about these things she wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Cut the poor woman some slack; she's just doing her job. The Senior Assistant's role in the Troy Davis melodrama is to argue for the state of Georgia no matter how nonsensical her arguments may sound to the uninitiated. Hers is not to reason why, nor can she allow her private judgment to intrude into the matter. The decision was made by her bureaucratic superiors and she is paid to spout their arguments in public even when it makes her look like an escapee from a Monty Python sketch.

Generally it doesn't matter because no one from the outside world is paying attention.

If folks had given up on Troy Davis he would be long dead. But because a shining sliver of humanity is paying attention and a handful of reporters are still pressing pen to paper Troy Davis clings to life.

It's got nothing to do with fairness or even common sense; it's all about finality and bureaucratic efficiency.

(source: Friends of Justice)

Georgia Supreme Court 

On November 13, 2007 the Georgia Supreme Court  heard Oral Arguments requesting a new trial for Troy.

The Supreme Court will not decide his guilty or innocence, but will only decide whether there is sufficient new evidence to merit a new trial. This same court has denied his appeal once before. This was partially on technical grounds and as a result of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. This act was to deal with terrorists but also has an impact on Death Row appeals.

Another thing that may affect the out come of this case is a recent Assessment by the American Bar Association of the Death Penalty in Georgia.

Supreme Court Grants Davis Application

Atlanta, August 3, 2007 -- The Georgia Supreme Court today granted Troy Anthony Davis’s application for discretionary appeal from the denial of his extraordinary motion for a new trial. The order was granted 4-to-3 with Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, Presiding Justice Carol Hunstein, Justice Robert Benham and Justice Hugh Thompson for the majority. Dissenting were Justice George Carley, Justice P. Harris Hines and Justice Harold Melton.

Georgia Supreme Court Denies Troy's Appeal for a new Trial, March 17, 2008

See the Timeline of  Injustice

UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 12 October 2007 -- Back in July, not too long after Mychal Bell, a member of the Jena 6, was tried wrongly as an adult for aggravated battery in the alleged attack of a white classmate, there was another case of southern justice gone awry percolating under the radar in Savannah, Ga.

It was that of 39-year-old Troy Anthony Davis, a death row prisoner for the past 15 years, who was convicted of murdering a white police officer -- his case built entirely upon what was most likely coerced eyewitness testimony with no physical or DNA evidence or a murder weapon.

He was just 24 hours away from a lethal injection when the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles granted him a temporary stay in light of seven of nine non-police witnesses recanting their original testimony.

Next month, the state's Supreme Court will decide whether to grant Davis a new trial in light of these new developments. 

Martina Davis-Correia, his sister, and representatives of Amnesty International, recently met with me at the National Urban League's headquarters in New York City.

Her brother's story made me realize just how imperfect our nation's
justice system - at least in the South - is.

Many of the original witnesses were very young and had criminal
histories, Davis-Correia told me. They felt intimidated by local law
enforcement authorities and worried about their own fate. 

One witness, a police snitch, now says law enforcement authorities paid him to lie on several occasions.

Shortly after Davis landed on death row, the Georgia Resource Center - which defended death row inmates - took a huge hit in funding at a crucial time for his case. He had no attorney and couldn't depend on the state to help him out. 

As witnesses began to recant, there was no one to take their new testimony down. 

After all the new information emerged, the courts told Davis there was nothing he could do. 

Evidence of police coercion had not been raised during the original trial so his petition to introduce new evidence was denied by a state court. 

The state Supreme Court and 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals concurred with the lower court's decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Davis' case. 

How an innocent man could still be executed because of a legal
technicality is beyond my comprehension. 

It defies logic and any conceptof fairness and justice.

The outpouring of support for her brother's cause has given
Davis-Correia and Amnesty International, which is lending legal support, hope that justice will finally be done. 

But Davis' case is yet another reminder of why Americans of all colors must remain vigilant in ensuring the integrity of our justice system. 

We can't take anything for granted obviously.

"Troy's case has really exposed the death penalty in the South: the racism, the recantation, the coercion; the witnesses, how they were treated, no physical evidence, no DNA, no gun," his sister recently told Democracy Now. 

"In November, I'm prayerful that with all the attention
and things going on and the truth, that the courts will come in and do what's right and give Troy a new trial. 

That's all he's ever asked for, for the witnesses to be able to tell the truth without duress."

On his part, Davis seems to be using his ordeal as a wake-up call to help other African-Americans protect themselves from similar plights.

"My situation is a situation that should have never happened. But
together, if we pull together as a people, I'll be coming home. 

And when I come home, we can bring more brothers and sisters out, bring them home, gather them together, and as one people, we can make a change in this wicked world," Davis told Naji Mujahid, a reporter with Free Speech Radio News and D.C. Radio Co-op in a July interview.

Let's just hope the Georgia Supreme Court next month will make the right decision and pave the way to sending him home soon.

By Marc H. Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League