A federal judge today ruled that a man convicted in the shooting death of an off-duty police officer 21 years ago “is not innocent.”
Troy Anthony Davis, 41, was sentenced to death for the August 1989 shooting death of off-duty Savannah police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Davis’ execution has been postponed a number of times.
Davis’ attorneys argue he was wrongfully convicted and point to a number of prosecution witnesses who have recanted their testimony since the original 1991 trial, according to published reports. The U.S. Supreme Court in August 2009 ordered a federal court judge to “make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes (Davis’) innocence.”
“After careful consideration and an in-depth review of twenty years of evidence, the Court is left with the firm conviction that while the State’s case may not be ironclad, most reasonable jurors would again vote to convict Mr. Davis of Officer MacPhail’s murder,” U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. wrote in a footnote in the opinion. “A federal court simply cannot interpose itself and set aside the jury verdict in this case absent a truly persuasive showing of innocence. To act contrarily would wreck complete havoc on the criminal justice system.”
Moore oversaw a two-day hearing in Savannah in June.
“Mr. Davis is not innocent,” Moore wrote.
“Ultimately, while Mr. Davis’s new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors,” Moore wrote. “The vast majority of the evidence at trial remains intact, and the new evidence is largely not credible or lacking in probative value.”
Comments
Can't tell wether Davis is innocent or not, anyway, it is obvious that there are no concrete clue of his guiltiness (no dna, no finger print, no gun powder). More: the former witnesses actually assert that they were forced by the police to testimony against Troy Davis. So, maybe this guy does deserve more attention in the eye of American Justice.
From France, but aware of what's going on in the world.
I'm completely against the death penalty to begin with. But in this case, why is the state of Georgia going to murder a man when the case against him isn't 'iron clad?' Shouldn't that reasonable doubt alone commute him to life? If blood lust and vengeance can be enacted in a case where there is doubt of innocence, then how slippery does that slope actually get? There is no weapon, no phsycial evidence and no motive. A man has already lost so much of his life for a crime that, from what I've read, he didn't commit- and now there will be a state sponsored murder based on a shaky case that involved the tragic death of a police officer which comes with alot of pressure to get someone, anyone, and stick a needle in their arm for it. The only thing that seems like 'smoke and mirrors' to me is the review of the case and of the evidence of innocence so the state can cover its ass in the end after they pull Troy out of their prison in a body bag. There is doubt as to this man's guilt! Wake up!
Mr. Davis is guilty. He's never taken responsibility for his actions and continues to deny them. Looks like "RAH" will never get the opportunity to be man. Just another guilty murderer claiming innocence.
But what if he was white...
If he were white he would have been put to death by now !!
If he were white he would be dead because you cant possibly have a racist jury towards a white man. Instead a black man gets convicted and we have to wait to watch him die because he crys foul. "5 of the 12 jurors were white, they were racist," cry me a river. You lost, suck it up and face it. God will judge you in the end.
I just watched a tv film about Dorothy Dainbridge, headliner in Vegas but not allowed to go in to pool, not allowed to sit with the white people. Troy Davis is black,-I am not- but if he was white Judge Moore would have accepted Troys appeal. I thought AMerica was a Christain country, so it makes me glad I am not religious for I oppose the death penalty. If one man is wrongly executed then it must be wrong.
Why one man can chose between life and death I cannot understand.
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