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Let's look at some comments from the Fox News site..
What else can you call it when someone is executed and there is reasonable doubt?
LiveATLANTA (CNN) -- Only the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stood between life and death for Troy Anthony Davis, and the core principles of American jurisprudence should have been the board's guide. But the board ignored those principles in denying Davis clemency.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. But the trial included no physical evidence to support his conviction. The prosecution produced no murder weapon, no DNA evidence and no surveillance tapes.
He was sentenced to death on the basis of nine so-called eyewitnesses, who testified in the trial. Seven of those witnesses, however, have since recanted or materially changed their stories. The jury, for instance, relied on two people who did not witness the crime but who testified that Davis had confessed to the shooting. Since then, both have said they were lying.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declared in 2007 that it "will not allow an execution to proceed in this state unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused."
And in the Davis case, a significant measure of doubt remained.
The U.S. Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of ordering a lower court to conduct an evidentiary hearing in the case because of the witness recantations and the absence of hard evidence. But in that hearing, the federal judge established a much higher standard of proof than the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. After finding -- astonishingly for the first time -- that executing an innocent man is uncons utional, the court then required Davis to prove that he was innocent.
Proving innocence is far more difficult than establishing doubts as to one's guilt and flips our system of criminal jurisprudence on its head. Instead of the American system's presumption of innocence and a requirement that the state prove guilt, Davis' evidentiary hearing began with the court presuming guilt and required the condemned to prove his innocence.
Even though the judge in the evidentiary hearing denied Davis a new trial, he conceded the standard was "extraordinarily high."
Davis was unable to meet this nearly insurmountable task. But while he fell short of "proving" his innocence, he established doubts as to his guilt, prompting the judge to concede the state's case against him was "not ironclad."
I support the death penalty, and have for a long time. And I am not making a judgment as to whether Davis is guilty or innocent. But surely the citizens of Savannah and the state of Georgia want justice served on behalf of MacPhail, the police officer.
Imposing a death sentence on the skimpiest of evidence does not serve the interest of justice. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles did not honor the standards of justice on which all Americans depend by granting clemency. In doing so, it will allow a man to be executed when we cannot be assured of his guilt.
That was the final admirable principle standing between Davis and his scheduled death by lethal injection Wednesday. And the parole board did not uphold it.
"I did not personally kill your son, father, brother. I am innocent." -- Troy Davis to victim's family just before execution
"May God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls."
http://twitter.com/#!/thinkprogress
Last edited by Nbadan; 09-21-2011 at 11:55 PM.
Let's look at some comments from the Fox News site..
From wiki...
In the early morning of August 20, 1989, the Savannah police, suspecting Davis and seeking a murder weapon, converged on the Davis home. Having sealed off the area, the police searched the house, and a pair of shorts belonging to Davis were found in a dryer and confiscated.
A neighbor of the Davis family, Jeffrey Sapp, testified that soon after the murder Davis had confessed to him.
The jury, composed of seven blacks and five whites.
"Spare my life. Just give me a second chance. That's all I ask." He told jurors he was convicted for "offenses I didn't commit."
Kevin McQueen, a former fellow prisoner, testified that Davis had confessed to shooting MacPhail
Hes dead now and good riddance
even on his last statement was a lie
"....... I did not have a gun........"
It's pretty clear the eye witnesses testimony, the primary basis for his conviction, did not stand up to the test of time in this case..
.He was sentenced to death on the basis of nine so-called eyewitnesses, who testified in the trial. Seven of those witnesses, however, have since recanted or materially changed their stories. The jury, for instance, relied on two people who did not witness the crime but who testified that Davis had confessed to the shooting. Since then, both have said they were lying
have you even taken the 15 minutes to read background of the story?
How many of those did you post Dan?
The case is certainly worth a look into at the very least...dude never asked to get out, just get life while people try to clear his name. I wonder what evidence was on those pants the Judge threw out because the cops didn't have a search warrant when they got into his mama's house. Guess we'll never know.
an accused n!gg@ in Georgia?
less chance than a snowball in .
Cop killer is media's latest baby seal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 21, 2011
5:15 pm Eastern
© 2011
For decades, liberals tried persuading Americans to abolish the death penalty, using their usual argument: hysterical sobbing.
Only when the media began lying about innocent people being executed did support for the death penalty begin to waver, falling from 80 percent to about 60 percent in a little more than a decade. (Silver lining: That's still more Americans than believe in manmade global warming.)
Fifty-nine percent of Americans now believe that an innocent man has been executed in the last five years. There is more credible evidence that space aliens have walked among us than that an innocent person has been executed in this country in the past 60 years, much less the past five years.
But unless members of the public are going to personally review trial transcripts in every death penalty case, they have no way of knowing the truth. The media certainly won't tell them.
It's nearly impossible to receive a death sentence these days – unless you do something completely crazy like shoot a cop in full view of dozens of witnesses in a Burger King parking lot, only a few hours after shooting at a passing car while exiting a party.
That's what Troy Davis did in August 1989. Davis is the media's current baby seal of death row.
After a two-week trial with 34 witnesses for the state and six witnesses for the defense, the jury of seven blacks and five whites took less than two hours to convict Davis of Officer Mark MacPhail's murder, as well as various other crimes. Two days later, the jury sentenced Davis to death.
Now, a brisk 22 years after Davis murdered Officer MacPhail, his sentence will finally be administered this week – barring any more of the legal shenanigans that have kept taxpayers on the hook for Davis' room and board for the past two decades.
(The average time on death row is 14 years. Then liberals turn around and triumphantly claim the death penalty doesn't have any noticeable deterrent effect. As the kids say: Duh.)
It has been claimed – in the New York Times and Time magazine, for example – that there was no "physical evidence" connecting Davis to the crimes that night.
Davis pulled out a gun and shot two strangers in public. What "physical evidence" were they expecting? No houses were broken into, no cars stolen, no rapes or fistfights accompanied the shootings. Where exactly would you look for DNA? And to prove what?
I suppose it would be nice if the s casings from both shootings that night matched. Oh wait – they did. That's "physical evidence."
It's true that the bulk of the evidence against Davis was eyewitness testimony. That tends to happen when you shoot someone in a busy Burger King parking lot.
Eyewitness testimony, like all evidence tending to show guilt, has gotten a bad name recently, but the "eyewitness" testimony in this case did not consist simply of strangers trying to distinguish one tall black man from another. For one thing, several of the eyewitnesses knew Davis personally.
The bulk of the eyewitness testimony established the following:
Two tall, young black men were harassing a vagrant in the Burger King parking lot, one in a yellow shirt and the other in a white Batman shirt. The one in the white shirt used a brown revolver to pistol-whip the vagrant. When a cop yelled at them to stop, the man in the white shirt ran, then wheeled around and shot the cop, walked over to his body and shot him again, smiling.
Some eyewitnesses described the shooter as wearing a white shirt, some said it was a white shirt with writing, and some identified it specifically as a white Batman shirt. Not one witness said the man in the yellow shirt pistol-whipped the vagrant or shot the cop.
Several of Davis' friends testified – without recantation – that he was the one in a white shirt. Several eyewitnesses, both acquaintances and strangers, specifically identified Davis as the one who shot Officer MacPhail.
Now the media claim that seven of the nine witnesses against Davis at trial have recanted.
First of all, the state presented 34 witnesses against Davis – not nine – which should give you some idea of how punctilious the media are about their facts in death penalty cases. Among the witnesses who did not recant a word of their testimony against Davis were three members of the Air Force, who saw the shooting from their van in the Burger King drive-in lane. The airman who saw events clearly enough to positively identify Davis as the shooter explained on cross-examination, "You don't forget someone that stands over and shoots someone."
Recanted testimony is the least believable evidence since it proves only that defense lawyers managed to pressure some witnesses to alter their testimony, conveniently after the trial has ended. Even criminal lobbyist Justice William Brennan ridiculed post-trial recantations.
Three recantations were from friends of Davis, making minor or completely unbelievable modifications to their trial testimony. For example, one said he was no longer sure he saw Davis shoot the cop, even though he was five feet away at the time. His remaining testimony still implicated Davis.
One alleged recantation, from the vagrant's girlfriend (since deceased), wasn't a recantation at all, but rather reiterated all relevant parts of her trial testimony, which included a direct identification of Davis as the shooter.
Only two of the seven alleged "recantations" (out of 34 witnesses) actually recanted anything of value – and those two affidavits were discounted by the court because Davis refused to allow the affiants to testify at the post-trial evidentiary hearing, even though one was seated right outside the courtroom, waiting to appear.
The court specifically warned Davis that his refusal to call his only two genuinely recanting witnesses would make their affidavits worthless. But Davis still refused to call them – suggesting, as the court said, that their lawyer-drafted affidavits would not have held up under cross-examination.
With death penalty opponents so fixated on Davis' race – he's black – it ought to be noted that all the above witnesses are themselves African-American. The first man Davis shot in the car that night was African-American.
I notice that the people so anxious to return this sociopathic cop-killer to the street don't live in his neighborhood.
There's a reason more than a dozen courts have looked at Davis' case and refused to overturn his death sentence. He is as innocent as every other executed man since at least 1950, which is to say, guilty as .
Read more: Cop killer is media's latest baby seal http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=347317#ixzz1Yh8UuGOR
/thread
Cameron Todd Willingham has a pretty strong case against this statement, IMO.He is as innocent as every other executed man since at least 1950, which is to say, guilty as
"He is as innocent as every other executed man since at least 1950"
YOU LIE that executions are 100% perfectly precise, without error, esp for executions of blacks in the South and red states.
lol Skeletor has reviewed every single death penalty case for the last 60 years.
Ah, yes... noted moral authority and legal scholar, Ann Coulter.
I can see why she finds fault with the legal opinion of ex-TX fed. dist. judge and FBI director under Reagan, GHW Bush and Clinton. What the would that bozo know, anyway?
Let's look at some comments from the Fox News site..
"nappybegone"
He is as innocent as every other executed man since at least 1950, which is to say, guilty as .
A tale of two condemned men...
One less piece of in the world? Is that the difference? I don't get it he killed a cop.
He was convicted on cir stantial evidence....most of which has been recanted...no physical evidence, no DNA evidence, no weapon....
S casings at the scene conclusively matched to s casings from another crime for which he was convicted.
Eyewitness testimony that he was the shooter...that wasn't recanted.
Eyewitness testimony, from several, that described the shirt worn by Davis.
Sister's convoluted story about how he came to be wearing the shirt identified by most eyewitnesses said was worn by the killer wasn't helpful either.
And, Crowe should be dead too.
One more thing.
Davis never argued he wasn't at the scene just that he wasn't the one, of the two thugs mugging the homeless guy, that pulled the trigger on the off-duty officer.
One of the two committed the murder. Nothing points to the other guy and, all Davis has is stuff trying to point away from him. He couldn't get rid of all the evidence.
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