Fresh Loaf

The AJC reports that more than two-dozen former judges, justices and prosecutors are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that a lower court should hear new evidence in the case of longtime death row inmate Troy Davis:

Among those signing the friend-of-the-court brief were former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson; two former state Supreme Court chief justices, including Norman Fletcher of Georgia; nine former U.S. attorneys, including former Georgia congressman Bob Barr and former FBI Director William Sessions; three former judges from the federal appeals court in Philadelphia; and former state attorneys general from Florida and New Jersey.

Davis has received eleventh-hour stays of execution three times in the past two years and is on the verge of exhausting every available appeal. To date, no court has heard evidence that seven of the nine trial witnesses to testify against him have since recanted their testimony, many of them claiming police initimidation.

Photo gallery of the May 19 rally held at the Georgia state capitol for Troy Davis

(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)

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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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Troy Davis

The tumultuous case of death row inmate Troy Davis — whose execution date has thrice been postponed due to innocence claims — has been mostly quiet since last fall.

That’s about to change.

According to an e-mail I just got from Wende Gozan Brown at Amnesty International:

Indie rock band State Radio has become active on the Troy Davis case. They play Atlanta tomorrow night, and they’re holding a rally for Troy at Little 5 Points at noon tomorrow (Findley Plaza, 1160 Euclid Ave NE). Chad, lead singer, will play acoustic and perform the song he wrote for Davis — Jared Feuer, our southern regional director, will speak, as will William Montrose and Sara Tatonchi of Southern Center for Human Rights. Then their show that night will basically be dedicated to Troy.

State Radio’s video for the abovementioned song, “State of Georgia,” provides a pretty compelling summation of the newly discovered evidence in the case, including the recantations of seven of nine trial witnesses.

State Radio plays the Variety Playhouse tomorrow, Feb. 13.

(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)

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CL’s Scott Henry discusses how Brian Nichols’ verdict —  one that spared him a trip to death row — led some to believe that Georgia’s death penalty may be broken.

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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