Troy Davis 22 years old at the time was convicted of murdering Mark MacPhail and for assaulting Michael Cooper and Larry Young on the same night. If anyone should have been able to identity Davis, Young the one who was pistol whipped recanted his oringinal statement.
A stay of execution was granted to Davis on September 23, 2008 which was scheduled a month later, October, 2008. On April 16, 2009 Davis request was denied, and his scheduled to be executed on July 2009. The Savannah NAACP along with other groups has taken on the case of Davis. A petition demanding justice for Davis has been created. Davis has been on death row for eighteen years (18). The National NAACP President Ben Jealous spoke at a rally held on the behalf of Davis in Savannah Georgia. Rep John Lewis will request that President Barack Obama intervene in this case to grant a presidential pardon.
In the meantime, Davis's attorneys are aiming for a habeas corpus petition to obtain an evidentiary hearing in a federal court. The United States Supreme Court is to make a ruling on the request on June 25, 2009. In light of the fact that the Pope, himself,has requested a end to the death penalty, a life sentence would be more humane than taking another life as retribution. However, in this case, Davis and his attorneys states there is no evidence tying Davis to the killing of the police officer.
I blogged about his story because a reader was interested in my opinion about this case. The first thing that comes to my mind is that Davis believed he would get a fair trial and from the facts that have been provided that did not happen. In other words, police interrogation tactics muddled the case. Davis should be exonerated and the real killer brought to justice.
Troy Davis: Both sides need to be told
ReplyDeleteDudley Sharp, contact info below
Anyone interested in justice will demand a fair, thorough look at both sides of this or any case. Here is the side that the pro Troy Davis faction is, intentionally, not presenting.
(1) Davis v Georgia, Georgia Supreme Court, 3/17/08
Full ruling http://www.gasupreme.us/pdf/s07a1758.pdf
Summary http://www.gasupreme.us/op_summaries/mar_17.pdf
" . . . the majority finds that 'most of the witnesses to the crime who have allegedly recanted have merely stated that they now do not feel able to identify the shooter.' "One of the affidavits 'might actually be read so as to confirm trial testimony that Davis was the shooter.' "
The murder occurred in 1989.
(2) "THE PAROLE BOARD'S CONSIDERATION OF THE TROY ANTHONY DAVIS CASE" , 9/22/08, http://www.pap.state.ga.us/opencms/opencms/
"After an exhaustive review of all available information regarding the Troy Davis case and after considering all possible reasons for granting clemency, the Board has determined that clemency is not warranted."
"The Board has now spent more than a year studying and considering this case. As a part of its proceedings, the Board gave Davis’ attorneys an opportunity to present every witness they desired to support their allegation that there is doubt as to Davis’ guilt. The Board heard each of these witnesses and questioned them closely. In addition, the Board has studied the voluminous trial transcript, the police investigation report and the initial statements of all witnesses. The Board has also had certain physical evidence retested and Davis interviewed."
(3) A detailed review of the extraordinary consideration that Davis was given for all of his claims, by Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton http://tinyurl.com/46c73l
Troy Davis' claims are undermined, revealing the dishonesty of the Davis advocates . Look, particularly, at pages 4-7, which show the reasoned, thoughtful and generous reviews of Davis' claims, as well a how despicable the one sided cynical pro Troy Davis effort is.
(4) Officer Mark Allen MacPhail: The family of murdered Officer MacPhail fully believes that Troy Davis murdered their loved one and that the evidence is supportive of that opinion. http://www.markallenmacphail.com/
Not simply an emotional and understandable plea for justice, but a detailed factual review of the case.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Death Penalty Support: Modern Catholic Scholars
ReplyDeleteDudley Sharp
There are thoughtful writings on both sides of this debate, but the pro death penalty side is much stronger. Any Catholic in good standing can call for more executions, if their prudential judgement calls for it.
1) Avery Cardinal Dulles
The Church may return to a "more traditional posture" on the death penalty and just war. " . . . used sparingly and with safeguards to protect the interests of justice, both the death penalty and war have, over the centuries, been recognized by the church as legitimate, sometimes even obligatory, exercises of state power." "An unpublished interview with Avery Dulles", All Things Catholic, John L. Allen, Jr., NCRcafe.org, 12/19/08, http://ncrcafe.org/node/2340
2) Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., considered one of the most prominent Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century.
"There are certain moral norms that have always and everywhere been held by the successors of the Apostles in communion with the Bishop of Rome." " . . . they are irreversibly binding on the followers of Christ until the end of the world." "Such moral truths are the grave sinfulness of contraception and direct abortion. Such, too, is the Catholic doctrine which defends the imposition of the death penalty." "Most of the Church's teaching, especially in the moral order, is infallible doctrine because it belongs to what we call her ordinary universal magisterium."
Pope Pius XII insists "that capital punishment is morally defensible in every age and culture of Christianity." " . . . the Church's teaching on 'the coercive power of legitimate human authority' is based on 'the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine.' It is wrong, therefore 'to say that these sources only contain ideas which are conditioned by historical circumstances.' On the contrary, they have 'a general and abiding validity.' (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1955, pp 81-2)." "Capital Punishment: New Testament Teaching", Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., 1998, www.therealpresence.org/archives/Sacred_Scripture/Sacred_Scripture_014.htm
3) Romano Amerio, a Vatican insider, scholar, professor at the Academy of Lugano, consultant to the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II, and a peritus (expert theologian) at the Council.
"The most irreligious aspect of this argument against capital punishment is that it denies its expiatory value which, from a religious point of view, is of the highest importance because it can include a final consent to give up the greatest of all worldly goods. This fits exactly with St. Thomas’s opinion that as well as canceling out any debt that the criminal owes to civil society, capital punishment can cancel all punishment due in the life to come. His thought is . . . Summa, 'Even death inflicted as a punishment for crimes takes away the whole punishment due for those crimes in the next life, or a least part of that punishment, according to the quantities of guilt, resignation and contrition; but a natural death does not." " . . . expiation is primarily a recognition of the divine majesty and lordship, which can be and should be recognized at every moment, in accordance with the principle of the concentration of one’s moral life." ". . . (the death penalty) has the highest expiatory value possible among natural things, precisely because life is the highest good among the relative goods of this world; and it is by consenting to sacrifice that life, that the fullest expiation can be made." "Amerio on capital punishment ", Chapter XXVI, 187. The death penalty, from the book Iota Unum, 5/25/07, www.domid.blogspot.com/2007/05/amerio-on-capital-punishment.html
SEE Pope John Paul II: Prudential Judgement and the death penalty,
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2007/07/23/pope-john-paul-ii-his-death-penalty-errors.aspx
copyright 2006-2009, Dudley Sharp Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Thanks for your comments. On June 25, 2009 Mr. Davis life will learn whether of not 18 years is enough time served without more evidence to support his death sentence.
ReplyDeleteFairness.
"Board gave Davis’ attorneys an opportunity to present every witness they desired to support their allegation that there is doubt as to Davis’ guilt."
ReplyDeletewait a minute. if Davis is asking for a new trial, that means a trial by a jury of his peers, not the prison board or whatever. no matter how extraordinary the board believes its attention to the matter may be, they are not a jury of Mr. Davis' peers.
During the trial is when the determination of guilt must be made. Eyewitness testimony seems to be pretty shaky quite often. How much trouble is it going to be for everyone to get the man a new trial? Is this because the family has found what it thinks is going to bring relief from the pain of losing their loved one? Because it won't. And if he's the wrong man, they can dream all they want that hanging Davis is going to be the answer, but they're wrong. It's tragic and their loss is felt, but seriously, after 18 years how much trouble is it really going to be to get this man a new trial once and for all and settle the matter?
This country is in trouble when it comes to our judicial system. There is too much weird political shit going on with detainees, there's too much finger pointing and blame mongering and revenging, and none of that is going to solve
anything. Clear, reasoned, carefully considered justice is what we are supposed to be standing for here. I don't give a fat flying fuck what anyone says about what Pope said it's OK to put someone to death, or whether someone has the awesome personal credibility of having been on Bill O'Rielly's show-----means fucking nothing to me. That's one world, where it's OK not to see flag-draped coffins coming back from overseas with our young men and women in them, or to remember that because of our lust for revenge, over half a million innocents are dead in the middle east, with millions homeless.
That's not my world. And I sure hope it's not where my fellow Americans want to live. There's a different reality outside of Television.
Look at the names of the people calling for attention to this case. Not for favors to one man, but to assure us ALL as citizens that if one of us is under suspicion, he or she is ENTITLED TO A FAIR TRIAL by a jury of his peers.
That's the frickin bottom line for me.