The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 71/No. 47      December 17, 2007

 
(front page)
Demonstrators in Atlanta:
Stop execution of Troy Davis!
 
Militant/Clay Dennison
Martina Correia, whose brother Troy Davis is on death row on false charges of murdering a policeman, speaks at November 13 press conference outside Georgia Supreme Court.

BY DENICE WADE
AND CLAY DENNISON  
ATLANTA—“It’s sad for us to say that in the United States it’s not unconstitutional to execute an innocent person if the state believes that they got a fair trial,” said Martina Correia, speaking to the media here at a November 11 rally on the steps of the Georgia state Capitol. Correia’s brother Troy Davis, a 38-year-old Black man, faces the death penalty on false charges of murdering a white policeman.

On November 13, 100 supporters of Davis packed a courtroom and an overflow area to observe arguments before the Georgia State Supreme Court on whether Troy Davis should receive a new trial.

The campaign to save Davis’s life has gained broad support, including from Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, Georgia congressman John Lewis, Amnesty International, and Pope Benedict XVI.

Davis, convicted of the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer, has been in prison for more than 18 years. He was to be executed July 17 but at the 11th hour received a 90-day stay of execution.

With no evidence of a murder weapon or other physical evidence to prove guilt, the case has relied on witness accounts. Since the trial, however, seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis have recanted their statements and four new witnesses have come forward to say someone else committed the killing.

“The state has never had a case of this magnitude with such recantations,” Jason Ewart, Davis’s defense attorney, told the court.

Acknowledging the impact of the campaign to win justice for Davis, Chatham County Chief Assistant District Attorney David Lock told the court, “We lost the media battle in this case.”

Nonetheless, the prosecutors continue to argue for the execution of Davis. They say new evidence and the witness recantations should not be considered, in part because they were introduced after a legal time limit.

“It should not be a consideration about when these witness recantations took place,” Correia said in an interview. “What needs to be addressed is, should someone’s life be at risk over procedural technicalities? This is someone’s life hanging in the balance. There is no just way to kill an innocent man.”

Correia said Davis’s supporters continue campaigning to tell the truth about the case. “We need people from all over to be writing to newspapers and calling in to the radio,” she said.

A decision by the Georgia Supreme Court on whether to hold a new trial for Davis is expected by January.

Information on the defense campaign can be found at www.troyanthonydavis.org. Letters can be sent to him at: Troy A. Davis 657378, GDCT G-3-79, P.O. Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233.
 
 
Related articles:
Abolish the death penalty!  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home