"Troy Anthony Davis' execution set for Sept. 21," is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report by Bill Rankin.
The Georgia Department of Corrections has set the execution of Troy Anthony Davis for 7 p.m. on Sept. 21.
The agency set the time and date a day after a Chatham County judge signed a death warrant for Davis, who was convicted of killing an off-duty Savannah police officer in 1989.
Davis' appeals are exhausted. He is expected to once again ask the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him clemency. The board has previously denied that request.
Davis, 41, was convicted of killing Officer Mark Allen MacPhail as MacPhail ran to the aid of a homeless man being pistol-whipped outside a Burger King.
The case has attracted international attention because a number of key prosecution witnesses either recanted or backed off their trial testimony. Other witnesses have come forward and said another man at the scene told them he was the actual killer.
The AP filing is, "Troy Davis execution date set for Sept. 21," by Greg Bluestein. It's via the Savannah Morning News.
Davis has exhausted his appeals, but his attorney Jason Ewart has said they plan to ask the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemency. The five-member panel has the power to commute or postpone executions, but rarely does so.
The order, which was provided to the Associated Press by Davis' defense attorney Brian Kammer, sets a window between Sept. 21 and Sept. 28 for the execution. The Georgia Attorney General's office confirmed the order but didn't elaborate.
Davis has long said he could prove he was wrongly convicted of the killing of Mark MacPhail. The officer was working off-duty at a Savannah bus station when he was shot twice while rushing to help a homeless man who had been attacked. Eyewitnesses identified Davis as the shooter at his trial, but no physical evidence tied him to the slaying. Davis was convicted of the murder in 1991 and sentenced to death.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 agreed he should have the rare chance to argue he was innocent before a federal judge. It was the first time in at least 50 years that the court had granted an American death row inmate such an innocence hearing.
During two days of testimony in June 2010, U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. heard from two witnesses who said they falsely incriminated Davis and two others who said another man had confessed to being MacPhail's killer in the years since Davis' trial.
But Moore concluded in August that several of the witnesses had already backed off their incriminating statements during the 1991 trial — so it wasn't new evidence — and that others simply couldn't be believed. He ruled that while the evidence casts some additional doubt on the conviction, "it is largely smoke and mirrors" and not nearly strong enough to prove Davis' innocence.
Davis appealed, but the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to hear the challenge in November. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected it in March.
Amnesty International, which has long championed Troy Davis' case, issued a statement, "Troy Davis: clemency urged in case 'riven with doubt' after execution set."
Amnesty International has urged the Board of Pardons and Parole in the US state of Georgia to grant clemency to death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis after a judge ordered that his execution will take place later this month (between 21-28 September).Troy Davis, 42, has been on death row since being convicted in 1991 of the killing of an off-duty policeman Mark Allen MacPhail, who was shot in Savannah, Georgia in 1989.Davis has always protested his innocence and there are longstanding doubts about the fairness of his trial. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime and seven out of nine prosecution witnesses later recanted or changed their initial testimonies in sworn affidavits.Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox said:“The board stayed Davis’ execution in 2007, stating that capital punishment was not an option when doubts about guilt remained.“Since then two more execution dates have come and gone, and there is still little clarity, much less proof, that Davis committed any crime.“Amnesty International respectfully asks the board to commute Davis’ sentence to life and prevent Georgia from making a catastrophic mistake.”Since the launch of its 2007 report, “Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia”, Amnesty has campaigned intensively for clemency for Davis.On 12 April 2011 Amnesty issued an “Urgent Action” to its membership on his behalf and more than 300,000 signatures have been gathered for Davis since the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles last considered clemency. Following an “evidentiary hearing” last summer, a former FBI director William Sessions renewed his support for the inmate, and Nobel laureates Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jose Ramos Horta have recently appealed to the board for clemency
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