Death row prisoner Troy Davis court date is now set

originally published by: PSLWeb.org
4th May 2010

After 19 years on death row, two scheduled executions, innumerable court hearings, rallies and teach-ins, Troy Davis will finally get his day in court on June 23.

In line with the most recent Supreme Court ruling, the U.S. Federal District Court in Savannah, Ga., will hear evidence as to Davis’s innocence.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. While no gun was found and no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime, the prosecution produced nine witnesses who testified to Davis’s guilt.

Since that time, however, seven of the original nine prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony. Nine new witnesses have come forward to support claims of Davis’s innocence. Despite this, courts from Georgia to the U.S. Supreme Court have passed the buck, either denying Davis a hearing on the new evidence or handing off responsibility to another jurisdiction.

Further hampering Davis’s efforts to have his case heard with new evidence is the fact that Georgia does not guarantee counsel for the appeals of death row inmates, leaving him until recently without effective counsel.

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Posted by Kushi Amlak-Sakhu on 05/05/2010. Filed under Capital Punishment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry