Do We Execute the Innocent?
March 17th, 2008 by 
Celeste Fremon
Much to the dismay of death penalty court watchers, myself included, today the Georgia Supreme Court denied Troy Anthony Davis a new trial in a 4-3 decision. Davis was to be executed this past July for the murder of a Savannah off-duty police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, in a Burger King parking lot in August of 1989. Seven of the nine witness who originally identified Davis have since recanted or changed their testimony saying they were pressured by police to positively ID Troy Davis. Of the remaining two witnesses, one—Sylvester “Redd” Coles— is now accused by several new witnesses of being the actual shooter.
One new witness says that self-styled tough guy, “Redd” Coles, threatened her to keep her quiet, but with Davis’ impending execution she felt she had to come forward.
Interestingly, it was Coles who initially drew police attention to Davis. Hours after the shooting, he and his lawyer went to the police and said he saw Davis pull the trigger. Police never looked at Coles for the crime, according to a two part series in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Three other new witnesses stepped forward after the trial to say that Coles confessed to the murder and bragged that he’d pinned it on another guy, reports the AJC.
There was no physical evidence linking Davis, a former coach in the Savannah Police Athletic League who had signed up for the Marines, to the crime, and the murder weapon was never found. A lawyer for Davis has admitted that, because of severe budget cuts, he did not have resources needed to properly defend his client.
Two of the original jurors who convicted Davis have signed sworn affidavits saying that based on the recanted testimony, he should not be executed. “In light of this new evidence,” wrote one juror, “I have genuine concerns about the fairness of Mr. Davis’ death sentence.”
Part of the reason Davis has not received a new trial has to do with a set of legal technicalities, explained Time Magazine in this July 2007 article.
William S. Sessions, former federal judge and Director of the FBI, was one of those who expressed deep dismay over today’s decision. “There are few more serious violent crimes than the murder of a police officer who selflessly risks everything to protect his community,” said Sessions. “However, justice can only be done if we are absolutely certain that the right person has been convicted of the crime, and a number of important questions about whether Troy Anthony Davis is actually guilty have been asked – and deserved answers. Today’s decision by the Georgia Supreme Court is a missed opportunity to reaffirm the state’s commitment to honest justice.”
Sessions is a member of a bipartisan Death Penalty Committee,sponsored by the Constitution Project (which includes supporters as well as opponents of capital punishment). The committee unanimously concluded in its report that “[s]tate and federal courts should ensure that every capital defendant is provided an adequate mechanism for introducing newly discovered evidence that would otherwise be procedurally barred, where it would more likely than not produce a different outcome at trial, or where it would undermine confidence in the reliability of the sentence.”
Reasonable people would think so. Or are we really quite so comfortable executing someone who may be innocent?
Posted in Courts, Death Penalty, crime and punishment, criminal justice | 
18 Comments »
March 17th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I really wish PD agencies across America would have some type of policy (or penal code) of reviewing a detective’s findings, reports, outcomes, perspectives, and demote their asses when they are totally wrong.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
My mom was the jury foreperson on the retrial of an appealed conviction for rape in Madison County, AL. The defendant was a convict in a work release program and serving time for a non-violent crime.
The retrial happened because the prosecution had withheld the fact that the victim, who said that she was a virgin before the rape, had contracted a sexually transmitted disease as a result of the rape. The defendant had no sign of the disease.
My mom said that her first thought after the acquittal was the realization for the victim that the perpetrator was still out there.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Randy, maybe the girl wasn’t really a virgin before the rape and that guy really did it. Verdicts would be so much easier if women didn’t lie so much. BTW, I wonder if the killers of the coed from North Carolina will get the same treatment as the accused Duke lacrosse players.
Regarding this case, I would feel better about the ruling denying a new trial if it were 7-0 versus 4-3. But, I don’t know enough about the technicalities of the appeal to draw an informed judgment. It could be that the judges ruled according to the law rather than their desires, and/or that the people who are recanting were telling the truth then rather than now. I’d go after them for perjury, and convictions on that might matter.
Another article by TIME explains the difficulty in recanted testimony. Either the defense attorneys didn’t give the original case much effort or they’re pulling all sorts of shenanigans now, which has been part of a greater problem of delaying justice.
I am not amazed that TIME called the law impacting this a “Newt Gingrich-era federal law,” even though it was President Clinton who signed it. That’s a typical line from TIME, which caused me to quit reading it a long time ago. Maybe Hillary should take credit for that law, too, like she does other things from “her” first administration.
The article says that Congress at that time also reduced funding for post-conviction defender organizations. It doesn’t mention that President Clinton had to sign-off on that budget cut, too, for which Hillary will also take credit–won’t she? Maybe they could cut education funds to provide more money to lawyers for these death row appeals.
I don’t know about the guilt or innocence of this guy, but, if there is really a problem with our justice system, then the system needs overall tweaking rather than handling it on a case-by-case basis–or, by judges who rule according to their wishes rather than the law.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Amnesty International has been circulating a petition to Tell the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to commute the death sentence for Troy Anthony Davis.
For anyone interested, a link that will take you to the petition site is here.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Could be my bifocals, or the color contrast on my monitor (lack thereof) which makes it appear (to me) that “here” fails to contain a hyperlink. It does, but for anyone else who thinks my html skills have failed (as I initially did), you can go to:
http://tinyurl.com/266d9m
March 17th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
It’s there, Listener, but I see it doesn’t show up as different color in the comments. I’ll see if I can get that corrected in the next couple of days.
Thanks for the Amnesty link.
Interesting story, Randy. And, Poplock, I agree. It’s the way it works in most professions—except…um…teaching.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Listener, you have to mark your hyperlinks with “bold” to get them to show up on this site’s comment section.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I agree with pOPloCk’s statement about making public officials personally accountable for their actions and results. In our area, we had the Library Board fire some librarians because they were white, but the city’s taxpayers had to pay the multi-million dollar discrimination judgment rather than those who made the decision. I’ve seen lazy and corrupt government workers ruin people’s lives, and it didn’t matter to them. They went home every night and slept well, again, since the taxpayers would cover their sorry a$$es.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Randy, maybe the girl wasn’t really a virgin before the rape and that guy really did it.
Then why would the prosecution withhold that information from the defense, a fact which you ignored?
March 18th, 2008 at 6:05 am
I’m not going to argue the Huntsville case with you here.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Because you know you’re wrong on the facts.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Please reread comment #10.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Please reread comment 11.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
The Rules of Commenting:
Rule 1: Woody is always right.
Rule 2: If Woody is wrong, refer to Rule 1.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
A word to the wise: don’t start something you lack the wil to finish.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Randy, it’s just not worth it. This isn’t the most important thing in my life.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:50 am
In the real legal world juries make decisions based on facts, not suppositions such as “maybe the girl wasn’t really a virgin before the rape and that guy really did it.”
May 20th, 2009 at 6:14 am
(Much, much later.) Did you see the left-wing movie “12 Angry Men?” I thought that the left took great pleasure in reconstructiong the case as they wanted it to be – regardless of testimony.