Legal News

For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years

By Ashby Jones

One final piece of business to attend to from the Big Monday at the Supreme Court. Not only did the court punt, for now, on the Hillary Clinton case and on Joe Nacchio’s cert petition, it also — to borrow Gwen Ifill’s phrase from the NewsHour Monday night — “kicked the can” on the cert petition of death-row inmate Troy Davis.

We haven’t uttered a word about this case on the LB, so let’s bring you up to speed, briefly.

In 1989, a police officer named Mark MacPhail was murdered while working off-duty as a security guard at a bus station in Savannah, Ga. According to this story in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, MacPhail had rushed to help a homeless man who had been beaten in a nearby parking lot. As he approached three men in the vicinity of the beating, MacPhail was shot to death. Largely based on the eyewitness testimony of nine people (the murder weapon was never found), Davis (pictured) was convicted and sentenced to death. Click here, as well, for a 2007 NYT article that gives a good overview of the case.

Since Davis’s conviction, however, no fewer than six of the nine eyewitnesses have reportedly changed their stories, saying they were pressured by law-enforcement officials to testify. Some of these people have named another man as the actual shooter.

But courts have repeatedly ruled it is too late in the appeals process to introduce new evidence and, so far, have refused to hear it. Davis has repeatedly had execution dates set, only to have them lifted at the 11th hour. Last September, Davis was two hours from being lethally injected when the U.S. Supreme Court stayed his execution. The court then denied his appeal, and the case was kicked back to the Eleventh Circuit, which again put off his execution date, only to later reject his request for a new trial.

Davis then appealed to the Supreme Court again, asking the court to consider the post-trial statements. But the court punted. They’ll reconsider Davis’s appeal in the late summer or fall.

"It's definitely good news," said Jason Ewart, Davis' attorney, who interpreted the court's inaction as a sign it wants to take a closer look at the case. "It's not just a move buying more time."

Added Ben Jealous, the CEO of the NAACP, to the Law Blog last week: “The case concerns a basic question for our country: Should we allow executions in cases in which there remain large and fundamental questions over a defendant’s guilt?”

According to the AJC article, with the Supreme Court in recess, the next move could fall to Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm. There's no stay of execution preventing Chisolm from trying to move forward with Davis' death sentence. The prosecutor released a brief statement Monday that stopped short of saying he would wait for the Supreme Court before acting.

"As previously stated, the Chatham County District Attorney's office has no comment on the substance of this case until all appeals are exhausted," Chisolm said.

Chisolm's predecessor, Spencer Lawton, was district attorney when Davis was convicted. Prosecutors under Lawton, who retired last year, rejected Davis' claims of innocence and labeled statements by recanting witnesses as "suspect."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 30, 2009 (boomark / email).