The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday granted a 90-day stay of execution to a man convicted of killing a Savannah police officer in 1989.Troy Davis, 38, had faced a Tuesday execution date prior to the decision by the board after less than an hour of deliberation.
The stay means the execution will be on hold while the board weighs the evidence presented as part of Davis' request for clemency.
It is really important that people still write to assure that justice is served 90 days from now.
I had thought that, after we move a few years hence, I would work on innocence projects. I cannot wait. I don't think you'll want to wait either. Indeed, this is urgent.
Troy Anthony Davis will be executed tomorrow night (Tuesday, July 17 at 7 PM). There is no physical evidence that he ever possessed a gun, no gunpowder on his hands, no DNA on the weapon from the 1991 shooting of a police officer, Mark Allen McPhail in Savannah, Georgia. 7/9 witnesses have recanted their ID of him, many saying they were coerced into lying by Savanna (GA) police. Two jurors said that had they known what they know now, they would not have convicted Troy Davis. They are now working to free him.
None of this evidence has ever been heard in court because the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, pushed through by President Clinton, and passed by the Republican led Congress in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombings, restricts subsequent appellate review of new evidence in death penalty cases.
How has it come to the point that actual innocence doesn't matter? The wrong here is so egregious that Congressman John Lewis and Senator Jeff Sessions (R- AL--A death penalty proponent)were witnesses at today's parole board hearing. Nobel-prize winner Rev. Desmond Tutu is also involved in trying to earn Davis's commutation. This is the last chance to halt the execution at 7 PM tomorrow. For more information, please go to the website of AmnestyUSA
The parole board will decide by 3 PM (Eastern), tomorrow, July 17th. Please send a FAX to the parole board at the preceding AmnestyUSA ink. Ask it to commute the sentence of Troy Anthony Davis.
The railroading of Todd Anthony Davis and his upcoming execution are crimes. Yet his unjust execution has been unwittingly facilitated by a provision in that anti-terrorism legislation. I don't believe President Clinton intended an outcome such as this. In any case, he should involve himself in this case and try to stop this injustice. No matter whether one opposes or supports the death penalty, no one is served by executing an innocent man. Meanwhile, a life is at stake. Please help....
That said, I dearly hope this man's life is spared.