[Ppnews] Troy Davis’ lawyers pursue new legal appeal

[Political Prisoner News]

Troy Davis’ lawyers pursue new legal appeal

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/10/22/davis_new_appeal.html

By 
<http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/10/22/mailto:brankin@ajc.com>BILL 
RANKIN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Lawyers for Troy Anthony Davis, scheduled to be 
executed Monday, are seeking permission to file a 
new federal lawsuit based on innocence claims.

Davis’ attorneys on Wednesday asked the 11th U.S. 
Circuit Court of Appeals to stay his execution by 
lethal injection and allow them to file a new round of appeals.

“Mr. Davis’ execution in light of new evidence 
concerning his innocence is constitutionally 
intolerable,” the motion said. “Society recoils 
at state execution of an innocent person.”

Davis, 40, has already pursued – and lost – 
appeals through the state and federal courts. The 
U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear 
Davis’ latest appeal, setting the course for his execution.

Davis is on Death Row for the Aug. 19, 1989, 
murder of 27-year-old Savannah Police Officer 
Mark Allen MacPhail. Since Davis’ trial, seven of 
nine key prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony.

The defendant’s claims of innocence have drawn 
opposition to his execution from leaders across 
the globe, including former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI.

On Wednesday, the European Union issued a 
statement, saying doubts about Davis’ guilt call 
for his death sentence to be commuted. “In these 
circumstances, there is great risk of miscarriage 
of justice with irreparable consequences,” the statement said.

Chatham County prosecutors expressed confidence in Davis’ guilt.

“The post-conviction stridency we’ve seen has 
been much about the death penalty and little 
about Davis,” District Attorney Spencer Lawton 
wrote in a recent op-ed piece in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The jury found that Davis, after shooting 
another man earlier in the evening, murdered a 
police officer who came to the rescue of a 
homeless man Davis had beaten. Officer MacPhail 
had never even drawn his weapon,” Lawton wrote.

Davis’ court filing said the Antiterrorism and 
Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 allows a 
condemned inmate to seek a second round of 
federal appeals if a federal appeals court 
approves it. Davis’ lawyers told the 11th Circuit 
they have made the requisite showing of actual 
innocence to allow a new round of appeals to begin.




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