Is Troy Davis Going To Die Today

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"Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a Georgia police officer in 1991. Nearly two decades later, Davis remains on death row — even though the case against him has fallen apart. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony.

Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles — the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles" - Amnesty


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It is all over for Troy. The guardians of the System are never going to admit they are wrong, corrupt or dishonest.

ruveyn

Another martyr for the Cause.

It bothers me that we can stop an execution in Iran, but not in a country such as the US.

Death penalty proponents should be lining up behind efforts to commute this sentence. The wrongful execution of a person is the nightmare scenario. The wrongful execution of a person after protracted efforts to exonerate him is even worse.

If advocates' efforts can serve to demonstrate that Troy Davis was not the shooter, and that none of the appeals or administrative safeguards were sufficient to address his questionable conviction, this will rip out an essential prop to death penalty advocates' legal and constitutional arguments. And politically, when middle class Americans have to be worried about their sons being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they may be less willing to accept the claim that "the system works," in the face of a manifest failure of the system to work.

At the end of the day, Troy Davis might well be guilty. But "might well," falls far short of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

I guess I'm the only person who hopes so.

So you think it's OK to execute people where there is reasonable doubt to whether they did it?

I'm not convinced be the witnesses recanting and yes I've heard everything about the story. I'm from Savannah originally.

Since this "Reasonable Doubt" you claim for yourself occurred after the conviction and sentencing, it is no longer relevant to the outcome. It is even less relevant considering that you were likely not a member of the jury.

Apparently there was little or no "Reasonable Doubt" in the jury's deliberations. The jury must have been presented with a preponderance of evidence that overcame all reasonable forms of doubt. Maybe if one of them recanted, it might make a difference, but I have my own "Reasonable Doubt of that outcome.

But can a lack of reasonable doubt stand in the face of credible allegations of prosecutorial misconduct?

If the trial was not--in and of itself--fair, it follows as a necessary consequence that a verdict arising from that trial is tainted.

Washing one's hands of a problem didn't work out so well for Pontius Pilate, either.

It's not like he had one trial and nobody is allowing him to appeal. He was retried and he's had about a billion stays of execution.

He should have won the appeal.

Because? I mean obviously somebody else did not think he should win his appeal or he would have won it.

Because the reason that he lost his appeal was because the witnesses were forced to lie to the court.

And who determines whether that was actually the case or not? I definitely agree that the witnesses lied at some point, but I don't see why I should assume their original testimony is the lie rather than their taking it back. I'm not inclined to believe that over the course of 22 years, one man with a bad reputation has been repeatedly misjudged. For what reason should I believe that?

There was no proof that he actually did it. In my opinion, someone was protecting the gunman and they figured that a man with a bad reputation would be an easy target to pin the crime on.