Troy Davis, time is fast running out ...

Signed, HB.

Signed and posted on PFA2...every little bit helps

And me. I am totally averse to the death penalty. But apart from that it all sounds very dodgy.

Gov. Nathan Deal will have the final say.

This is why I can never make my mind up about the death penalty.

Some people are blights on humanity, and deserve life less than a rabid dog - Bin Laden, for example.

But putting someone to death, especially on not-very-strong evidence? Not good.

I like the US idea of life actually meaning life; guilty or innocent, this man has been on Death Row for over twenty years.

In most of Europe, he would now be getting released, not executed.

I don't know what the answer is.

bb1 wrote:This is why I can never make my mind up about the death penalty.

Some people are blights on humanity, and deserve life less than a rabid dog - Bin Laden, for example.

But putting someone to death, especially on not-very-strong evidence? Not good.

I like the US idea of life actually meaning life; guilty or innocent, this man has been on Death Row for over twenty years.

In most of Europe, he would now be getting released, not executed.

I don't know what the answer is.

I got the same email as HB. There is still a chance of reprieve if the Governor steps in.

Troy Davies' Final Appeal was turned down by Georgia' Supreme Court.
His Execution will go ahead tonight.
May his soul find peace.

I pray that they are not going to execute an innocent man. As Tony says, may his soul RIP.

lily wrote:I pray that they are not going to execute an innocent man. As Tony says, may his soul RIP.

It has been carried out. Troy Davies died at 7:06 pm Eastern time.

Oh my, Tony. RIP Troy Davies.

That's odd, Sky news are claiming it was stopped at the very last minute. Sadly, I guess they got that one wrong.

bb1 wrote:That's odd, Sky news are claiming it was stopped at the very last minute. Sadly, I guess they got that one wrong.

I got an email Bonny, but I will now double check!

Looks like it, Tony!

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16074137

At 7:06 p.m. tonight, five minutes after his scheduled death, Davis' supporters erupted in cheers, hugs and tears outside the jail in Jackson, Ga., as supporters believed Davis had been saved from the death penalty. But the Supreme Court only granted a temporary reprieve as it considers the decision.

The Supreme Court could decide at any time tonight or in the next seven days whether to go through with his execution, according to local TV station 11Alive.

Thanks, Tony; what a dreadful business.

May the Supreme Court reach the correct decision.

lily wrote:May the Supreme Court reach the correct decision.

They should stop this now! The email I receive said it had been carried out!
Georgia news say it was delayed at 7:06.

This is awful to watch; in the UK he would be being released now, not executed - though that isn't necessarily a good thing either, as life almost never means life here.

I am always in two minds about the death penalty anyway, and if there is even the slightest doubt, I really don't think it should be applied.

I am always in two minds about the death penalty anyway, and if there is even the slightest doubt, I really don't think it should be applied.

That's how I also feel, Bonny. Only do it if there is irrefutable proof of guilt. I can't help help but feel that he is innocent.

I'm innocent. I didn't kill your son': Troy Davis's last words to family in execution chamber before he is finally put to death

Even on his death bed Davis maintained he was innocent
Prisoner told MacPhail family to 'dig deeper and find the truth'
Defence lawyer calls death 'a legalised lynching' and said execution was 'more macabre and horrible than anything on film or television'
Davis finally died at 11.08pm
Last ditch appeal had challenged ballistics linking Davis to the crime, and eyewitness testimony identifying Davis as the killer
All nine Supreme Court justices voted to deny the stay after taking more than four hours to come to their decision
Davis convicted of killing off duty police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989

By HANNAH ROBERTS
Last updated at 5:01 AM on 22nd September 2011

Moments before his execution Troy Davis told the family of slain policeman Mark MacPhail, 'I'm innocent. I didn't kill your son.'
Lifting his head from the gurney he was strapped to, Davis said that he was not responsible for the 1989 murder.
According to witnesses the convicted murderer's final words were: 'To the MacPhail family I am not personally responsible for the death of your husband, father and brother. I am innocent, '
Eyewitness Jon Lewis said outside the prison that Davis insisted he did not have a gun.
Davis urged his family and supporters to 'Dig deeper into this case. Find the truth.'
The execution went ahead despite a dramatic intervention minutes before he was due to be put to death.
The death row inmate was executed by lethal injection within an hour of the decision by US Supreme Court justices.
Davis' lawyer Thomas Ruffin called the execution 'a legalised lynching'.
Davis' case was riddled with doubt, the lawyer maintained. Davis used his last words to call on everybody to 'bring an end to this madness called capital punishment', Ruffin said.
Ruffin described the process of execution was 'sickening'. He said: 'I saw the tube inserted into his arm, and then fluid, then jerking

'It's sickening. It's worse than any film adaptation. It's more macabre and horrible than anyting on film and television.'
Georgia officials had delayed the process just before the scheduled 7pm death.
A last minute appeal by Davis' lawyers challenged ballistics linking the death row inmate to the 1989 murder of off-duty policeman Mark MacPhail and eyewitness testimony identifying Davis as the killer.
After more than four hours the appeal was denied by the Supreme Court Justices. Five of nine Supreme Court judges were needed to stay the execution.
A statement issues by the Supreme Court read :'The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice (Clarence) Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied'
Hundreds of jubilant demonstrators on the site at Jackson prison had celebrated at word that the death by lethal injection had been temporarily halted.
Until the delay it seemed almost certain that Davis would be executed.
Georgia's supreme court had earlier on Wednesday rejected a last-chance appeal by Davis' lawyers.
A Butts County superior court judge had also declined to stop the execution.
Lawyers for Davis went to the US Supreme Court at around 6pm eastern time this evening. From 7pm Georgia was within its rights to execute Davis but instead chose to wait for the Supreme Court's decision.
Anneliese MacPhail, the mother of slain Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark MacPhail, told CNN she hoped to 'have some peace now'.
Speaking after the Supreme Court decision she said 'I'd like to have some peace now that it is over... I'd like it to come to an end now.
'We have been through hell. He [Davis] did this. Nobody made him do it . It was his choice.
'I have lost my son and the father of my grandchildren.
'He has made his own bed and he's got to sleep in it.'
Earlier the off duty policeman's mother had spoken of the pain caused by the eleventh hour delay.
She said: 'I’m absolutely devastated because I want it over with. ... They’ve been through the courts four times there in Georgia. They’ve been to the Supreme Court three times.
'This delay, again, is very upsetting and I think very unfair to us.'
'I'd like to close this book. We feel [Davis is] guilty. The evidence and everything that we have seen – that I have seen , because I’ve been to all the trials – he is guilty, and I believe in that. And so does the rest of my family.'

A vigil was also being held outside the prison in Jackson and Amnesty targeted U.S. embassies across the world.
As prison officials, family members and demonstrators reacted to the Supreme Court's decision dozens of Georgia state troopers in riot gear gathered at the scene.
Supporters had resorted to increasingly desperate measures such as urging prison workers to strike and posting a judge's phone number online.
Earlier today the convicted murderer was sad to be 'upbeat and prayerful' and turned down the opportunity to have a last meal of his choice - as protesters gathered as far afield as Paris and London.
Defence lawyer Stephen Marsh had hoped the polygraph would convince the state pardons board to reconsider a decision against clemency, which was rejected yesterday.
Tonight is the fourth time in four years that Davis' execution has been scheduled by Georgia officials.

He has long claimed he is innocent of killing Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer working as a security guard in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. But state and federal courts have repeatedly upheld his conviction.
Prosecutors and MacPhail's relatives say they have no doubt the right man is being punished.
On Tuesday, Georgia's pardons board rejected a last-ditch clemency plea despite high-profile support from figures including the Pope and a former FBI director for the claim that he was wrongly convicted.
Steve Hayes, spokesman for the Board of Pardons and Paroles, said the panel decided to rejected Davis' request for clemency after hearing hours of testimony from his supporters and prosecutors.
The board did not elaborate on the decision in its written official response to the clemency application.
The decision appeared to leave Davis with little chance of avoiding the execution date. Defence attorney Jason Ewart has said that the pardons board was likely Davis' last option.
Davis is to be executed by injection at 7pm tonight for the 1989 killing of Mr MacPhail, a 27-year-old off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard in Savannah when he was shot dead rushing to help a homeless man who had been attacked

Davis didn't want a last meal. He planned to spend his final hours meeting with friends, family and supporters. According to an advocate who met with him late Tuesday, he was upbeat, prayerful and expected last-minute wrangling by attorneys.
He doesn't want to spend three hours away from his family on what could be the last day of his life if it won't make any difference,' Mr Marsh said.
Davis' lawyers have long argued Davis was a victim of mistaken identity. But prosecutors say they have no doubt that they charged the right person with the crime.
Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who secured Davis' conviction in 1991, said he was embarrassed for the judicial system that the execution has taken so long.
'What we have had is a manufactured appearance of doubt which has taken on the quality of legitimate doubt itself. And all of it is exquisitely unfair,' said Mr Lawton, who retired as Chatham County's head prosecutor in 2008.
'The good news is we live in a civilised society where questions like this are decided based on fact in open and transparent courts of law, and not on street corners.'

Davis has captured worldwide attention because of the doubt his supporters have raised over whether he killed Mr MacPhail, who was shot to death August 19, 1989, after coming to the aid of Larry Young, a homeless man who was pistol-whipped in a Burger King parking lot.
Prosecutors say Davis was with another man who was demanding that Mr Young give him a beer when Davis pulled out a handgun and bashed Mr Young with it. When Mr MacPhail arrived to help, they say Davis had a smirk on his face as he shot the officer to death.
Witnesses placed Davis at the crime scene and identified him as the shooter. Shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting that Davis was convicted of. There was no other physical evidence. No blood or DNA tied Davis to the crime and the weapon was never found.
Davis' attorneys say seven of nine key witnesses who testified at his trial have disputed all or parts of their testimony.
The state initially planned to execute him in July 2007 but the pardons board granted him a stay less than 24 hours before he was to die. The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in a year later and halted the lethal injection two hours before he was to be executed. And a federal appeals court halted another planned execution a few months later.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted Davis a hearing to prove his innocence, the first time it had done so for a death row inmate in at least 50 years. At that June 2010 hearing, two witnesses testified that they falsely incriminated Davis at his trial when they said Davis confessed to the killing. Two others told the judge the man with Davis that night later said he shot Mr MacPhail.

Prosecutors, though, argued that Davis' lawyers were simply rehashing old testimony that had already been rejected by a jury. And they said no trial court could ever consider the hearsay from the other witnesses who blamed the other man for the crime.

U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. sided with them. He said the evidence presented at the hearing wasn't nearly enough to prove Davis is innocent and validate his request for a new trial. He said while Davis' 'new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors.'
Mr MacPhail's relatives said they were relieved by the Georgia pardons board’s decision. 'That's what we wanted, and that's what we got,' said Anneliese MacPhail, the victim's mother. 'We wanted to get it over with, and for him to get his punishment.'
'Justice was finally served for my father,' said Mark MacPhail Jr., who was an infant when his father was gunned down. 'The truth was finally heard.'
'He has had ample time to prove his innocence,' said Mr MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris. 'And he is not innocent.'
Kim Davis, the inmate's sister, declined immediate comment on the decision.
Amnesty International USA director Larry Cox said in a statement that the decision was 'unconscionable.'
'Should Troy Davis be executed, Georgia may well have executed an innocent man and in so doing discredited the justice system,' Mr Cox said.
Among those who supported Davis' clemency request are former president Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI.
A host of conservative figures have also advocated on his behalf, including former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, ex-Justice Department official Larry Thompson and one-time FBI Director William Sessions.
The clamour has increased online today with a number of famous names joining calls for the execution to be stopped. Kim Kardashian tweeted: 'No one should die by lethal injection when there is this much doubt!'.
Def-Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, rapper Ghostface Killah, Reverend Al Sharpton and record producer Jermaine Dupri all added their opinions over the internet as well.
In Europe, where the planned execution has drawn widespread criticism, legislators and activists were making a last-minute appeal to the state of Georgia to refrain from executing Davis.
Amnesty International and other groups planned a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Paris later Wednesday. Amnesty International also planned to hold a vigil outside the U.S. Embassy in London on Wednesday night.

Renate Wohlwend of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly noted doubts raised about Davis' conviction. She said that 'to carry out this irrevocable act now would be a terrible mistake which could lead to a tragic injustice.'

Davis' legal team said in a statement it was 'incredibly disappointed' by the board's decision.
'The death penalty should not be exercised where doubt exists about the guilt of the accused. The Board did not follow that standard here,' he said.
'The state's case against Mr Davis, based largely on discredited eyewitness testimony and an inaccurate ballistics report, cannot resolve the significant, lingering doubts that exist here.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2040054/Troy-Davis-Supreme-Court-justices-unanimously-reject-minute-appeal.html#ixzz1YeRJ8P9O

"The good news is that we live in a civilized society." Now just get on with it, and kill him. That isn't even irony.

Injustice is irrelevant, The Death Penalty is just plain wrong. It will stop eventually, but not yet, it seems. And I can't help wondering if the outcome would have been the same if Troy had been a white man. Sorry about that.

Sadly, in America, once The Death Penalty has been handed down, it is virtually impossible to reverse it.

There are factions that fear that if they do reverse a guilty death penalty case that it will undermine their right to kill people. Civilised, my arse.

'He has had ample time to prove his innocence,' said Mr MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris. 'And he is not innocent.'

Oh Lord. How many of us could ever 'prove' our innocence....

There is no justice in convicting the wrong person, let alone executing the wrong person.

Dear Anthony,

In the early hours of this morning, after a torturous delay of more than 4 hours, the state of Georgia executed Troy Anthony Davis by lethal injection. Despite the serious doubts about his guilt. Despite millions calling on Georgia to reconsider.

Write a message of solidarity to Troy's family


Like you, I am not only sad but outraged that this has happened. I was there last night with hundreds of others at a vigil outside the US embassy. We continued to hope, right up until the last moment, that those with the power to do so would wake up and prevent this injustice. They did not

Today, Georgia didn't just kill Troy Davis, they killed the faith and confidence of Georgians, Americans and Troy Davis supporters worldwide in the US criminal justice system.


My colleague, Wende at AIUSA met with Troy yesterday to convey the support that he has had from all of you. He asked us to deliver this message back to you:

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace." Troy Davis

Soon we will channel all the outrage we’re feeling into redoubling our efforts for all the other Troy Davises. But today, we simply stand in solidarity with Troy’s family on this darkest of days. Send a message to Troy’s family now

You must know that your support has been a huge comfort to Troy and his family. Thank you for everything you have done.


I am Troy Davis. You are Troy Davis. We will not stop fighting for justice.



Kate Allen
Amnesty UK Director

I had one as well. They are meticulous in their gratitude for support.