"Judge says Troy Davis should appeal directly to U.S. Supreme Court," is the breaking report from the Savannah Morning News. It's by Jan Skutch.
Attorneys for Troy Anthony Davis must appeal a denial of a new trial to the U.S. Supreme Court – not the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals - in the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail, a federal judge has ruled.
“Any review of this court’s decision should be by the Supreme Court itself, not an intermediate appellate court,’’ U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. ruled.
Moore ruled in a 172-page order in August that Davis failed to prove his innocence in the MacPhail slaying and will not get a new trial.
He sent his ruling directly to the Supreme Court.
The federal court heard evidence and argument after the Supreme Court returned the case last year with instructions that a judge hear testimony to determine whether evidence not available at Davis’ 1991 trial would “clearly’’ establish his innocence.
After two days of hearings in June, Moore ruled Davis’ new evidence “casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors.’’
Davis’ lawyers then sought a certificate to appeal to the 11 U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, rather than directly to the Supreme Court.
Moore ruled that since the Supreme Court exercised its “original jurisdiction’’ in transferring the case to his court, it removed the appellate court from the equation.
He said it would be “incredibly anachronistic’’ for a court of appeals to have jurisdiction over cases under the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction.
Earlier coverage of the case begins here.
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