Fresh Loaf

Three times over the past two years, Troy Davis has come within 24 hours of his scheduled execution, only to be spared by an eleventh-hour stay.

Now, with another execution date all but certain, the longtime death row inmate has filed what very well could be his last appeal — and a rally tonight on the Capitol steps will attempt to bring even more awareness to Davis’ high-profile innocence claims.

Seven of the nine trial witnesses who took the stand against Davis in 1991 have since recanted their testimony, many of them alleging intimidation by Savannah police officers who were investigating the murder of one of their own. Officer Mark MacPhail, who’d been working off-duty as a security guard when he came to the aid of a pistol-whipped homeless man, was brutally gunned down in a Burger King parking lot in 1989.

Davis was later convicted of killing MacPhail, but witnesses have since claimed that another man — one of the two trial witnesses who didn‘t rescind his testimony against Davis — might have been the killer.

(more…)

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William Mize, the white supremacist convicted in 1995 of killing Eddie Tucker of Hull, Ga., last night was denied a stay of execution and request for appeal by the Georgia Supreme Court.

He’s scheduled to be executed by lethal injection tonight at 7 p.m.

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According to a press release from the court:

The Supreme Court of Georgia today issued a stay of execution for William Mark Mize to give the trial court judge time to rule on Mize’s Extraordinary Motion for New Trial. Chief Judge Lawton Stephens of the Western Judicial Circuit on Monday denied Mize’s request for a hearing on the motion, but he did not rule on the motion itself. An appeal to the state’s highest court is therefore premature.

In today’s order, the Georgia Supreme Court states the stay will automatically expire 24 hours after the judge rules. Mize, 52, was due to be put to death tonight at 7:00 p.m. by lethal injection for the 1994 murder of Eddie Tucker in Oconee County.

Some background on Mize from the Athens Banner-Herald:

Mize, who led a small group authorities said was related to the Ku Klux Klan, was convicted in December 1995 of killing 34-year-old Eddie Tucker of Hull.

In October 1994, a few members of the group – and Tucker, who had filled out an application to join – went into the Northwestern Oconee County woods, supposedly to camp, after Tucker and another group member failed to follow Mize’s orders to burn down a purported crack house in Athens.

Mize killed Tucker with a shotgun blast, prosecutors said.

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Despite key witnesses recanting their testimony, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 16 rejected longtime death row inmate Troy Davis’ request for a new trial — the latest and possibly last in a lengthy series of appeals.

“Davis has not presented us with a showing of innocence so compelling that we would be obligated to act today.”

— Judges Joel Dubina and Stanley Marcus, writing for the majority in their rejection of Davis’ request

“To execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

— Judge Rosemary Barkett, writing for the dissent

“I am disgusted, I am saddened by it, but I’m not deterred in my determination to fight for my brother.”

— Davis’ sister Martina Correia in an April 16 WTOCTV.com article

“We believe that justice will be served and the courts will do what they’ve done for the past twenty years and deny him.”

— Mark MacPhail Jr., the son of the police officer whom Davis was convicted of killing, quoted in the same WTOC-TV story

“You have to plan your own funeral: saying goodbye, your last meal, what to do with your body, who will be there to witness it.”

— Davis, describing his reaction to being read a death sentence in an April 14 conference call with his supporters, as reported in the Emory Wheel

(Photo courtesy Georgia Dept. of Corrections)

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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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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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Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an umbrella coalition for organizations and individuals opposed to the practice, has condemned the Georgia Board of Prisons  and Paroles’ decision to deny Troy Davis clemency.

From Sara Totonchi, chair of the coalition:

“We are horrified and ashamed as Georgians to see our state revealing its bloodthirst by executing Troy Davis, when so many questions remain on whether or not he is innocent. Executing Troy Davis is callous, careless and irreversible.  The state should be slowing down to address the well-documented, serious problems with a system that irreversibly takes human life, rather than rushing to carry out an execution of a possibly innocent man. This case is proof positive that the death penalty should be abolished.”

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William Earl Lynd was executed by lethal injection on May 6 in Jackson, Ga., 45 miles south of Atlanta. He was the first prisoner executed in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court recently lifted a moratorium on the practice. Dean Poling, a journalist at the Valdosta Daily Times, witnessed and wrote about the event.

From his article:

These are among the last things William Earl Lynd sees.

A gathering of faces in the witness room. Most are strangers, official faces from the state Department of Corrections office. The faces of two of Ginger Moore’s relatives whom he may or may not have known on the front row. Witnesses include former Berrien County Sheriff Jerry Brogdon who took Lynd’s confession and former Alapaha District Attorney Robert Ellis who prosecuted the case against Lynd. He might recognize their faces if he sees them through the glass.

The faces he most likely recognizes are those of the prison’s personnel. Unlike most of the other witnesses, however, they do not look at Lynd.

Strapped to the gurney, Lynd can only move his head and his eyes. There are the uniformed correctional officers, six big men, who press against him to administer the straps. He is in a small room, the chamber, led their by the six officers from a connecting door. There is the window to the witness room. A ringed curtain conceals one wall of the chamber. Behind Lynd is a one-way glass where three officials will each press one of the three chemicals which will put Lynd to sleep, paralyze him then stop his heart.

Read the rest here.

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This just in from the Georgia Supreme Court:

GEORGIA SUPREME COURT GRANTS STAYAtlanta, October 18, 2007 – The Supreme Court of Georgia today granted a stay of execution for Jack Alderman, who was scheduled to die tomorrow, October 19, by lethal injection. In its order, the Court points out that the issue of the constitutionality of lethal injection is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. It also cites the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday to stay the Virginia execution of Christopher Emmett pending an appeal in which lethal injection is challenged.

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