U.S. Supreme Court holds off on Troy Davis decision until September
June 29, 2009 at 1:58 pm by Mara Shalhoup in News
This just in, from Amnesty International’s media relations director, Wende Gozan Brown: The country’s highest court has postponed its decision on whether to hear the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, whose innocence claims have caused an international outcry.
Although a decision was expected today, the U.S. Supreme Court has opted to wait until it reconvenes in September — which will ward off a death warrant for Davis.
Davis already has had three execution dates set over the past three years, and once came within hours of execution before a last-minute stay was granted.
We’ll be updating this as the story develops. Stay tuned.
Here’s a statement we just received from Amnesty International:
“This delay is an indication that the Supreme Court is concerned by the gravity of Troy Davis’ innocence claims,” said Laura Moye, director of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. ”We will continue to call on all authorities, including the Supreme Court, to finally hear the evidence that has motivated hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to raise their voices and demand justice.”
(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)
June 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I read this to mean that there were three votes to hear Davis’s appeal and Souter was not one of the three. They are keeping the case open until September in case Sotamayor is confirmed by then and wants to provide the fourth vote to take the case.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I think you’re right that they wanted to wait and see if Sotomayor wanted to grant cert, but I’m not sure I would presume Souter was not in favor of granting it. There has been a tradition in the past of waiting to allow replacements to participate in major cases, so it may just be that they agreed it would be best to let the replacement be part of that decision.
I also think the strange procedural posture (a direct habeas petition) may have played a role, in that they may have been struggling with whether to remand the case for an evidentiary hearing, deny it outright, grant certiorari over the 11th circuit decision, or hold their own evidentiary hearing. They had a lot more options to consider than they would with a normal cert petition. So, probably better to wait until a day when they weren’t all rushing out of town and had time to consider their options carefully.