Fresh Loaf

1. AJC moving to metro Atlanta’s real downtown (The daily will be abandoning its intown digs for a new, OTP office. Yep.)

2. Lisa Borders up in latest mayoral poll (Though Councilwoman Mary Norwood still holds the lead, Council Prez Borders appears to be making progress. Someone’s pissed.)

3. Creative Loafing Inc. and its largest creditor will duke it out next week (The fate of the six-newspaper chain will be determined at an equity auction TOMORROW. Stay tuned.)

4. Threesome assault defense, ‘Ah jest wanted to watch’ (Total weirdness.)

5. Troy Davis deserves hearing, says Supremes (Somebody — the U.S. Supreme Court, no less! — is finally granting the longtime death row inmate a hearing on his innocence claims.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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On Aug. 17, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that condemned death row inmate Troy Davis deserves a chance to present new evidence in his case. Attorneys have long argued that Davis didn’t kill Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 and that key witnesses have recanted testimony.

“The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death, clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing.”
— U.S. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority Aug. 17

“We should be prepared to go to the moon and back in order to avoid executing an innocent man. Every stone must be turned, every possibility fully explored, every alternative narrative put to rest to the extent possible. Justice demands no less of us.”
— From an Aug. 19 Augusta Chronicle editorial

“He should have been dead two years ago … Every delay is awful for us every time. I’m not saying Davis’ family isn’t suffering either. But Davis had a choice. Mark didn’t … I want it to be over.”
— Anneliese MacPhail, mother of the murdered police officer, in the Aug. 19 New York Times

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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.”

(more…)

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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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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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Over 1,200 people rallied in front of the Georgia Capitol this evening for death row inmate Troy Davis. The rally was part of the “Global Day of Action for Troy Davis.” Rallies for Davis were held in 45 states and 28 countries.

One of the rally’s speakers was Juan Melendez, a former death row inmate who served 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Melendez was freed in January 2002 after another person’s confession to the murder for which he was convicted was allowed to be heard in court. Just as in Davis’ case, no physical evidence linked Melendez to the crime. He was convicted on the false testimony of a police informant who was paid $5,000 for the tip that cost Melendez 17 years of his life behind bars. “You can never release an innocent man from the grave,” Melendez said during his speech at the rally.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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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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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

Longtime Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, whose innocence claims have attracted national attention and who’s received three last-minute stays of execution, has lost what could be the last appeal to spare his life.

According the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision, issued today [PDF]:

Davis has failed to adequately explain why he had not exhausted his state remedies concerning … prior to filing his first federal habeas petition.

Basically, it’s not a matter of too little evidence in Davis’ favor but, rather, evidence that was presented way too late.

According to the AJC:

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Davis’ bid in a 2-1 decision, saying he could not file a new appeal raising claims of innocence. But the court continued his stay of execution for 30 more days so Davis can pursue his final appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In December 2008, a three-judge panel heard Davis’ most recent federal appeal for a new trial. Through his attorneys, Davis claims to have been wrongfully convicted in 1991 of killing a Savannah police officer. Seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis at trial have since recanted their testimony — many of them claiming that they were coerced into identifying Davis by the police department colleagues of murdered officer Mark MacPhail.

(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)

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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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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.

(more…)

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1. Annals of bizarro: Andisheh publicly questions Sunday Paper news editor (allegations of weirdness abound)

2. Jezebel: Four out of five “Real Housewives” are broke (oh, celebs — they’re just like us!)

3. Word: Travesty of death (Brian Nichols is spared the death penalty; Troy Davis continues to fight his death sentence)

4. BMF’s third-in-command sentenced (20 years for the Black Mafia Family’s Fleming “Ill” Daniels)

5. Southeastern Film Critics Association’s got Milk for best picture (critics group — which includes our very own Curt Holman — digs the Harvey Milk biopic)

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1. Bettie Page in ICU (She died two days later — sniff, sniff.)

2. Chris Devoe/Rachael Spiewak benefit at Highland Inn (The event was so packed, people were turned away at the door.)

3. Annie Leibovitz talks (photo) shop (Says Annie: “It’s been a process over the years to learn how to talk and to mean what [I] say.”)

4. Court hears latest Troy Davis appeal (View photos from Davis’ vigil at our Sideshow blog.)

5. Where the hell is Candler-McAfee, Ga.? (We later unearthed evidence of its existence — look.)

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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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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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In about three hours, the latest in a series of candlelight vigils will be held for Death Row resident Troy Davis, this one in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals building in Downtown’s Fairlie-Poplar district. As usual, the gathering will be led by Rev. Tim McDonald, pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church, and other Atlanta  clergy folk.

Tomorrow, the Court will hear arguments to decide if Davis will be permitted to challenge his murder conviction in federal court. Davis has already avoided three scheduled execution dates due to last-minute court reprieves.

Tonight’s event begins at 6:30 p.m. at 56 Forsyth St.

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TROY DAVIS: A man holding a photo of Davis protests his death sentence at the state Capitol on October 24.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear arguments December 9 to decide if Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis will be permitted to challenge his murder conviction in federal court.

Davis was condemned to death for the 1989 murder of Savannah police Officer Mark MacPhail. Since his conviction and death sentence, seven of nine witnesses for the prosecution recanted their testimony, and three additional witnesses came forward claiming another man pulled the trigger.

Davis has come within hours of execution on three occasions since July 2007 as his repeated appeals to have his case reconsidered have thus far been rejected by state and federal courts. The 11th Circuit stayed Davis’s most recent execution order on October 27, days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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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.

(more…)

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That’s what we just heard. We’ll update ASAP.

Troy Davis is scheduled for execution Monday — his third execution date in just over a year. On both other occasisons, his execution was delayed within 24 hours of its scheduled time.

UPDATE: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay. For more on the recent appeal filed by Davis’ attorneys to the 11th Circuit, click here.

For photos from the Troy Davis protest last night, click here.

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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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1) Bram Stoker’s Dracula continues at Aurora Theatre.

2) William Elliot Whitmore plays the Drunken Unicorn.

3) K.D. Lang plays the Woodruff Arts Center.

4) Atlanta Ballet’s Swan Lake opens at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

5) Stand Firm for Justice Rally for Troy Davis is on the State Capitol steps.

(Photo by Christopher Bartelski)

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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.

(more…)

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On Oct. 14, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the final appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis. Two days later, the state set Davis’ execution for Oct. 27. The high court’s decision followed a refusal by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Davis’ sentence, despite evidence someone else committed the crime.

“[T]he death penalty undermines human dignity. Any judicial error in its application is irreversible and irreparable. I therefore solemnly call on the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its position.”

— France’s Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade, in an Oct. 15 statement

“not one, not two, but SEVEN witnesses went back on what they originally said……AND there is no physical evidence / dna???? just goes to show that cats are going to need more than just Obama to help us all.”

— “Professor X,” responding to a post on AllHipHop.com

“I’m not a great fan of the death penalty. I wish of course that none of this had happened, but it has. … The law is the law. It says you kill a police officer, you’re subject to the death penalty.”

— Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton, speaking to the Associated Press

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