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This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that condemned Georgia inmate Troy Anthony Davis should get a chance to present new evidence in court, according to the AP and other news sources.

Keeping track of the Davis case over the past two years has been like watching a nail-biting tennis match — with a human life at stake. Davis, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, has twice three times had his scheduled execution delayed as his case was reviewed, re-reviewed and shuffled from one court to another, yet he’d not been granted another day in court — until now.

According to the AJC:

The high court ordered a federal judge to “receive testimony and findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis’s] innocence.”

The two dissenters on the Court were Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Anyone surprised?

In his majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the questions about the Davis case indicate too great a chance that the verdict was wrong:

“Imagine a petitioner in Davis’ situation who possesses new evidence conclusively and definitively proving, beyond any scintilla of doubt, that he is an innocent man. The dissent’s reasoning would allow such a petitioner to be put to death nonetheless.”

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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)

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According to a story on Savannah’s WTOC.com, the country’s highest court will decide — perhaps as soon as tomorrow on Monday, June 29 — whether it will hear the case of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, whose execution has been delayed three times based on claims of his innocence.

According to WTOC, the U.S. Supreme Court will have a conference today to decide whether to take Davis’ case. The story also states: “Davis’ sister, Martina Correia, says the Supreme Court could have a decision by Friday or Monday or it could be as late as this fall.”

Seven of nine trial witnesses who helped convict Davis in 1991 have since recanted their testimony. The courts have consistently ruled against considering the recantations and other new evidence that suggest Davis might not have killed Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

The U.S. Supreme Court delayed one of Davis’ execution dates, but ultimately declined to hear the case. The latest appeal is based on a different legal claim.

More to come …

UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court is considering an unusual — and longshot — habeas corpus petition filed directly to that court. According to June 19 story on Savannah’s WSAV.com:

Davis’s lawyers have filed a habeas petition before the U.S. Supreme Court, but many assume that because of past rejections by the high court, that Davis’s last option may be a new trial at the local level.

Also, check out this L.A. Times story on Davis from earlier this month for some of the political complexities surrounding the case.

(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)

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Jim Galloway at the AJC’s Political Insider points us to an op-ed about longtime death row inmate Troy Davis in today’s New York Times by Bob Barr. The former Libertarian presidential candidate and Georgia congressman, who says he’s a death-penalty supporter, says Georgia might be about to execute an innocent man.

This threat of injustice has come about because the lower courts have misread the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a law I helped write when I was in Congress. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, I wanted to stop the unfounded and abusive delays in capital cases that tend to undermine our criminal justice system.

With the effective death penalty act, Congress limited the number of habeas corpus petitions that a defendant could file, and set a time after which those petitions could no longer be filed. But nothing in the statute should have left the courts with the impression that they were barred from hearing claims of actual innocence like Troy Davis’s.

It would seem in everyone’s interest to find out as best we can what really happened that night 20 years ago in a dim parking lot where Officer Mark MacPhail was shot dead. With no murder weapon, surveillance videotape or DNA evidence left behind, the jury that judged Mr. Davis had to weigh the conflicting testimony of several eyewitnesses to sift out the gunman from the onlookers who had nothing to do with the heinous crime.

…

I am a firm believer in the death penalty, but I am an equally firm believer in the rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution. To execute Troy Davis without having a court hear the evidence of his innocence would be unconscionable and unconstitutional.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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If you’ve spent much time on the Interwebs, you’ve likely come across the never-ending debate over the virtues of old-fashioned print journalism vs. blogging. (And if you haven’t, you can do some catching up here, here and most especially, here.)

Yesterday, the local blog Atlanta Unfiltered scored a big coup, posting a story — including the PDF documents — about a new county report indicating that fired DeKalb Police Chief Terrell Bolton “told a subordinate to falsify records to hide two luxury cars that the chief took home for his own use.”

The day before, AU had reported that Bolton “took more than $35,000 in comp days after his supervisor refused to sign off on them,” also according to the investigation, which was overseen by DeKalb Sheriff Tom Brown.

My first reaction was, Damn, I’m glad my beat isn’t DeKalb police or I’d be getting a tongue-lashing from my editor about now for getting the shit scooped out of me by a blogger. In a follow-up story in today’s AJC, the reporter acknowledges that he gained access to the report via Atlanta Unfiltered. Ouch.

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For the second year, the Georgia Senate has again passed a Republican-penned proposal to give prosecutors the ability to seek life without parole against murder suspects.

As I explained in a recent article, in many murder cases, Georgia’s DAs now must choose between seeking life with parole or the death penalty. Giving prosecutors the option of going for life without parole is likely to save millions of tax dollars that would otherwise be spent on trying to send killers to Death Row on shaky evidence. As we learned with the Brian Nichols sentence, even a no-brainer capital case can collapse at the finish line.

The sponsor of Senate Bill 13 is Sen. Preston Smith, R-Rome, who sees his measure as a reasonable alternative to lowering the standards for sentencing a killer to death, which is the preferred route of the House. Last year, Smith refused to let a House bill to allow the death penalty to be doled out by non-unanimous juries to be attached to his own legislation – a move that scuttled both bills.

This year, versions of both bills are back in play. We’ll be watching to see which pulls ahead.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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To legal mavens and armchair jurists alike, the November verdict in the Brian Nichols trial offered stunning evidence that the death penalty in Georgia is broken.

Courthouse killer Brian Nichols on trial

If a remorseless, mad-dog killer like Nichols is able to escape death row — after boastfully confessing to a day-long murder-and-car-jacking spree — then how can the state rationalize the planned execution of men whose decades-old convictions rest on circumstantial evidence and recanted testimony?

Anne Emanuel, for one, believes it can’t.

“The death penalty is justifiable for certain crimes, but in Georgia we’ve got huge inequities,” says Emanuel, a criminal law professor at Georgia State University who chaired an American Bar Association committee that spent two years studying the death penalty in Georgia.

That committee’s 2006 report recommended that the state suspend executions until it was able to repair cracks in the legal system to ensure that capital punishment is being applied fairly. A subsequent two-year investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution determined that, over the previous decade, the process that produces death sentences in Georgia is largely arbitrary — often resulting in wildly different punishments for similar crimes.

“Getting the death penalty in Georgia is as predictable as a lightning strike,” the newspaper concluded.
Emanuel believes the recent Nichols verdict and the never-ending appeals of longtime death row inmate Troy Davis — whose innocence claims and evidence of faulty eyewitness accounts have attracted international attention — serve to underscore the need to halt executions while the state determines whether it’s even possible to salvage the legal integrity of its death penalty.

There is, however, one major drawback with this approach: It ain’t gonna happen.

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Troy Davis

On Dec. 9, a three-judge panel heard the most recent federal appeal of death row inmate Troy Davis, who — according to newly discovered evidence — might have been wrongfully convicted in 1991 of killing a Savannah police officer. Four days later, Brian Nichols — who was convicted last month of killing a judge, a court reporter, a deputy, and a federal agent — was spared the death penalty by a Fulton County jury.

“Our justice system should punish the guilty, free the innocent and have the wisdom to know the difference. I hope the 11th Circuit [Court] will give Davis his day in court.”

— Former FBI Director William Sessions, in an AJC op-ed.

“It’s … possible the real guilty person who shot Officer MacPhail is not being prosecuted.”

— Federal judge Rosemary Barkett, one of the three judges hearing Davis’ appeal, quoted in the AJC.

“He will do it again, and he will do it again, and again, and again, until somebody stops him, until someone puts an end to it, and that someone is you.”

— Fulton prosecutor Clint Rucker, in his three-and-a-half hour closing argument in the death penalty phase of Brian Nichols’ trial.

“I have talked to two jurors and they both say that some people showed up for jury duty with their minds already made up and never entered into a meaningful discussion of a death sentence. That means we don’t get a fair trial.”

— Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard, quoted in the AJC.

(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections.)

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Brian Nichols, who killed four people in a 2005 shooting rampage that started inside the Fulton County courthouse, was sentenced this morning to life in prison without parole, the AJC reports.

Prosecutors failed to convince the jury that Nichols should die for his crimes. His victims were a judge, a court reporter, a deputy and a federal agent.

According to the AJC, the judge presiding over Nichols’ trial, James Bodiford, offered these somber words:

“For four innocent people to be taken off this earth in just a few hours … I believe there is a higher power and there had to be some purpose. I know a lot of people must have thought ‘If only Agent [David] Wilhelm had gotten the draw on Mr. Nichols.’“

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From the AJC:

A Fulton County jury announced today that it is “hung” on whether to sentence convicted murderer Brian Nichols to death.

Superior Court Judge James Bodiford said the jury was asking for advice on how to proceed in its deliberations. Bodiford prepared to call the jury into the courtroom for a conference Thursday morning.

The jury is split 9-3. Bodiford did not inquire whether the majority favored a death sentence or life imprisonment. He said he would have the jury continue deliberating after lunch.

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On Monday night in downtown Atlanta, nearly 75 people gathered outside the U.S. Court of Appeals building to hold a candlelight vigil for death row inmate Troy Davis.

An 11th Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel met today to decide whether to hear his latest appeal. On three occasions, Davis received a last-minute stay of execution based on appeals that have raised the possibility of his innocence.

Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Since Davis’ original trial, seven of nine witnesses whose testimony helped convict him have recanted.

In today’s hearing, both the defense and the state presented 30 minutes of oral arguments. According to Laura Moye of Amnesty International, the court’s ruling — which is expected in the coming weeks — could lead to a hearing during which the witnesses who recanted would be allowed to testify. However, if the court rules in favor of the state, Davis likely will get his fourth execution date.

The Rev. Tim McDonald, pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church, closed the vigil Monday night by leading the crowd in the song "This Little Light of Mine."

More photos from the vigil at our Sideshow blog.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Curt Holman chatting about Theatrical Outfit’s production of A Lesson Before Dying — Romulus Linney’s death-penalty drama, set in Louisiana in 1948.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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The program for Theatrical Outfit’s production of A Lesson Before Dying (Romulus Linney’s theatrical adaptation of Ernest J. Gaines’ acclaimed novel) features a note from executive artistic director Tom Key, in which he remarks:

A Lesson Before Dying takes place in 1948 Louisiana. Sixty years later, as I write this in Georgia on Sep. 22, 2008, in less than 24 hours, Troy Davis maybe put to death by lethal injection fo rhe 1989 murder of Savanahh Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail — a murder which many believe he may not have commited. For Officer MacPhail, Mr. Davis, for their families, and for all of us, I pray that a day will come when no one would find the treatment of the character Jefferson in Ernest Gaines’ novel dramatically plausible — when there would no longer be an audience for this kind of tragedy. In the meantime, I must have hope, and I have not found another place in which it can be learned other than in this particular classroom.

(On Oct. 24 Troy Davis received a stay of execution pending an appeal before a federal appeals court.)

Although A Lesson Before Dying involves a black man convicted for a crime he probably did not commit, it’s not a race to save Jefferson from the electric chair, like A Time to Kill. Nor does it explore the racist Southern legal system of the era along the lines of To Kill a Mockingbird — the racial injustice of the system is taken as a disheartening given. Instead, it’s most like the movie Dead Man Walking, in which an outsider tries to prepare a condemned man to be executed.

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Troy Anthony Davis, the Georgia man convicted of murdering a Savannah police officer in 1989, is scheduled to be executed Monday, Oct. 27, on 7 p.m. While Davis has no appeals left and no impediments stand in the way of his execution, Amnesty International and other groups are planning demonstrations and marches over the next few days to protest the imposition of the death penalty in a case that’s attracted international attention.

First up, in a little less than two hours, a rally will begin (PDF) on the steps of the state Capitol that’s expected to last from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Originally, the Rev. Al Sharpton was scheduled to be the featured speaker, but the Amnesty folks just told us they can’t confirm he’ll be there.

Next, at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning, death-penalty activists will march in a funeral procession from Underground Atlanta to the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is located in GSU’s twin towers on the northeast corner of Piedmont and MLK Boulevard across from the Capitol. The group will carry a casket filled with more than 140,000 Amnesty International petitions from people opposed to Davis’ execution. Participants are asked to wear black.

To keep up with events over the weekend, go to the Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty website.

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Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton has penned an editorial, published yesterday on AJC.com and Sunday on SavannahNow.com, to let people know why the upcoming execution of Troy Davis doesn’t weigh on his conscience.

The only problem: All of Lawton’s points are supported by evidence that supposedly hasn’t seen the light of day — except that it has. In fact, most of Lawton’s revelations have been addressed and contradicted by published reports and court documents. He also glosses over evidence that suggests Davis — who is scheduled to die Oct. 27 — could be innocent.

Lawton writes:

Many people are concerned that an innocent man is about to be put to death. I know this and I understand it. I am not likewise concerned, however, and I want to explain why.

The only information the public has had in the 17 years since Troy Davis’ conviction has been generated by people ideologically opposed to the death penalty, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused.

While they have shouted, we have been silent. The canons of legal ethics prohibit a lawyer — prosecutor and defense counsel alike — from commenting publicly in a pending criminal case. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, the case is over and I can tell our side.

After the jump, a dissection of Lawton’s ensuing argument.

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Troy Davis

According to the commissioner of the state Department of Corrections, death row inmate Troy Davis is scheduled for execution on Monday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. The death warrant was signed earlier today in Chatham County Superior Court.

Davis, whose execution has twice been halted at the last minute — most recently by the U.S. Supreme Court — appears to have exhausted his appeals. Yet evidence unearthed in the case, including the recantations of seven of nine trial witnesses, suggests that he might not have killed Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

Check Fresh Loaf for continuing updates. For background on Davis’ case, click here.

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I’ve read much of today’s coverage about the U.S. Supreme Court’s deflating decision not to review the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis — whose execution the high court halted last month, less than two hours before it was scheduled.

Davis’ case caught international attention after seven of nine trial witnesses recanted their testimony, many of them claiming police coercion. Another three people who didn’t testify later claimed that another man — one of the two who failed to recant his testimony — confessed to them that it was he who pulled the trigger on Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

Here’s my favorite quote so far about the high court’s decision, from a verbose but eloquent essay by CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen:

Why the Justices turned away from a case they had sniffed at last month may forever remain a mystery. But what is perfectly clear is that Georgia has now created a virtually unassailable bar to criminal defendants whose shaky convictions are later subverted through the discovery of new evidence.

Thanks, Georgia.

For background on the case, click here.

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After giving the case intense consideration, the nation’s highest court will not hear the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, according to an email from Amnesty International.

Essentially, this means Davis has run out of appeals — despite the fact that seven of his nine trial witnesses have recanted their testimony. His execution date — the third in just over a year — likely will be set soon. This time, there will be little to no hope for a stay.

For background on the case, click here.

More to come …

UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court’s order states:

The motion of The Innocence Project for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Basically, the justices will not review Davis’ case (including a decision from the Georgia Supreme Court), but will allow did consider a “friend of the court” brief from the Innocence Project, the nonprofit dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted inmates. Apparently, the amicus brief did not sway the justices.

According to Amnesty International:

In denying Davis’ petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court has effectively ended a longstanding battle to have new evidence in Davis’ favor heard in a court of law.

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Though a decision was expected today, the U.S. Supreme Court instead will meet on Friday to discuss whether to hear the 11th-hour appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis. At least that’s what the high court’s docket says.

Davis has twice seen his execution delayed — both times within hours of his scheduled death. In the 17 years since Davis was convicted of murdering Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail, his attorneys have unearthed evidence suggesting another man committed the crime. But lower courts, including the Georgia Supreme Court, have ruled that the evidence is inadmissible.

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UPDATE: U.S. Supreme Court will convene for the Davis case on Friday.

According to AJC.com, the country’s highest court needs more time to decide whether to hear the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis. But CBS 46 reports that the U.S. Supreme Court will not intervene — which would pave the way for a new execution date.

The CBS post attributes the breaking development to CNN, though as of now, I don’t see any mention of it on CNN.com.

Davis’ case has attracted international attention because newly discovered evidence suggests that someone else killed Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court delayed Davis’ execution less than two hours before it was scheduled so that the justices could decide whether to take up his appeal. A decision was expected today.

The AJC reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court apparently needs more time to look at an appeal from death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, whose claims of innocence have attracted international attention.

“It’s obviously a very important case and the justices are still considering it,” Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, said. “Maybe the justices are split about it and want more time to consider it.”

It is not unusual, Tobias said, particularly given the backlog of cases appealed during the summer months, for the court to take several weeks to decide whether to hear an appeal such as Davis’.

According to CBS:

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won’t intervene in the Troy Davis murder case, according to CNN.

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Supporters and loved ones of Troy Davis marched through downtown Atlanta and rallied at Ebenezer Baptist Church September 18, 2008.

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Former Georgia Congressman and current Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr has been an outspoken supporter of Troy Davis, the death row inmate who received an eleventh-hour stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday.

Here’s Barr’s reaction to the stay

“While the death penalty is an important tool in our legal system, it should only be used in cases where there is absolutely no doubt of a person’s guilt. This was not the case with Troy Davis.”

“I hope the facts in Davis’ case can be reexamined in order to address the unanswered questions before once again deciding his fate. As a strong supporter of the death penalty, I do not advocate for clemency lightly.  However, in the case of Troy Davis, the broader questions of fairness and public faith in criminal justice deserved another look.”

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What was planned as a vigil instead became a celebration.

This evening, less than two hours before he was scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia, longtime death row inmate Troy Davis was granted a stay of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court. To celebrate the eleventh hour decision, Davis supporters gathered on the western steps of the state Capitol.

“I was stunned,” says Laura Moye, deputy director of Amnesty International USA’s Southern regional office. Moye learned of the court’s decision while she was taping a radio interview. “We’d hoped for it all day. I was prepared for the worst, but I’d hoped for the best.”

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court’s justices are scheduled to decide whether or not to hear Davis’ case. If they refuse to hear it, the stay will end.

“The struggle is not over,” Moye says. “We at least have a little more time. Every day is a gift. We will celebrate today, we will organize tomorrow.”

(Photo by Thomas Wheatley)

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There are a bunch of events planned today for Troy Davis, the longtime death row inmate scheduled for execution tonight — despite evidence that suggests he might not have killed Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court grants a last-minute stay of execution, Davis will die by lethal injection sometime after 7 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, Ga.

Here’s the run-down of protests, organized by Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Amnesty International:

• 1:15 p.m. — GFADP organizers and volunteers will meet at Johnny Rocket’s near Underground Atlanta (50 Upper Alabama St.) to stage a nearby “die-in.” According to the group: “This means laying down in front of a particular site as someone holds a sign explaining why people are lying down.”
• 6:30 p.m. (in Jackson) — If there is no stay of execution, protesters will gather outside the site of the execution. Get directions here.
• 6:30 p.m. (in Atlanta) — Davis’ supporters will meet at the Georgia State Capitol downtown, near the corner of MLK Drive and Washington Street, either to protest Davis’ death or celebrate a stay of execution.
• Additional protests are planned in Americus, Athens, Augusta, Clarkesville, Dawson, Marietta and Savannah. Details here.

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The Rev. Marvin L. Morgan and Steve Woodall were arrested this evening at Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office after spending all day there attempting to speak with Perdue about the Troy Davis death penalty case.

Morgan, Woodall and Sister Pat Sullivan began their wait just after 11 a.m. The governor never responded to their request. Morgan and Woodall were arrested after the Capitol closed at 5:00 p.m. and were taken away in a squad car. Police responded with a “no comment” when asked what charges Morgan and Woodall face.

Around 4:45 p.m., police blocked me from entering the building, threatened to confiscate my camera and escorted me out.

Late today, the Georgia Supreme Court denied Davis’ request for a stay of his execution, which is set for tomorrow evening. But the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would decide tomorrow whether to hear his appeal.

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