rssSupreme Court Orders a New Hearing for Death Row Inmate Troy Davis
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 10:51 am
- 6 Comments
In a highly unusual decision, a majority of Supreme Court justices yesterday ordered that a federal judge in Georgia must hear new evidence that lawyers for Troy Davis have been saying for years will prove his innocence.
Davis, as I’ve explained before, has been on death row in Georgia since 1989, when he was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer based on the testimony of nine eyewitnesses. There was no physical evidence directly linking him to the crime, however, and seven of the nine witnesses have since recanted their earlier statements. Another man has also boasted of committing the crime and new witnesses have said that other man was the real perpetrator. Some of the original witnesses claim they were pressured by police to identify Davis.
Despite multiple hearings at various state and federal courts on the issue, every court until yesterday had decided that the new evidence should not be considered.
Those judges all apparently agreed with Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent yesterday, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, in which he called the new hearing “a fool’s errand” and said: “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
While Ashby Jones of zyhe Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog today calls that a “fascinating question,” it’s a question that only a lawyer can love.
In fact, even Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, no flaming liberal, wrote in 1993 that “we may assume … that in a capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of ‘actual innocence’ made after trial would render the execution of a defendant unconstitutional and warrant federal habeas relief,” as Adam Liptak points out today in The New York Times.
Fortunately, a majority of justices on Monday decided that the possibility of “actual innocence” as demonstrated by the facts of Davis’s case was sufficient to require the federal judge to at least hear the evidence.
“The Court’s decision means that we may finally know whether Georgia sought to execute an innocent man and allowed the real perpetrator to escape,” said Virginia Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, which submitted a brief on Davis’s behalf.
6 Comments
Comment posted August 18, 2009 @ 3:46 pm
He wouldn't have been the first person being executed and later found not guilty to the crime he was convicted of. I can't even begin to imagine..
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Comment posted August 18, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
Scalia in pitch-perfect Queen of Hearts mode: “Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.”
Comment posted August 18, 2009 @ 6:41 pm
RALP NADER ATTEMPTED TO EDUCATE AMERICAN VOTERS ABOUT U.S.CORPORATE POWER IN AMERICA AND HOW THEY CONTROL OUR CONGRESSIONAL PEOPLE THROUGH
THEIR POCKET BOOK (POLITICAL DONATIONS).WITHOUT THE DOUGH $$ THESE U.S.CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD DO NOT GET RE~ELECTED TO CONGRESS.TO STAY IN POLITICAL OFFICE IN AMERICA, SADLY ONE HAS TO BARTER YOUR VOTES IN CONGRESS AND REPRESENT POWER INTERESTS IN RETURN FOR THE BUCK$.
POORER AMERICANS HAVE NEVER HAD THE $$$ LOBBY TO INFLUENCE THIS CORRUPT POLITICAL CONCEPT (OF HORSE TRADING VOTES FOR POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS)AND GET PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR ALL OF OUR MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS (FALSELY ACCUSED OR OTHERWISE).
***TROY DAVIS IS ONE OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POORER AMERICANS WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN AFFORDED THEIR PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION OR PROPER DEFENSE INVESTIGATION AT THEIR INITIAL TRIALS. WE THE PUBLIC REALLY HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS MAN IS INNOCENT OR GUILTY UNTIL HE HAS PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION AT HIS NEXT REAL TRIAL.
IMPROPER MURDER TRIALS TAKE PLACE IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES ALL THE TIME.
WHY SHOULD AVERAGE MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS IN THE WEALTHIEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD BE TREATED AS IF THEY ARE LIVING A THIRD WORLD LIFE ~ STYLE?
AMERICAN IVORY TOWER U.S.CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD HAVE PASSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION IN WASHINGTON DC TO SPEND 50 BILLION AMERICAN TAX $$$ ON THE INTERNATIONAL FIGHT AGAINST AIDS OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS WHILE THEIR OWN AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING TOLD BY THIS SAME U.S.CONGRESS THAT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE AND PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR CITIZENS IS UNAFFORDABLE.
*** WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS (WHO ARE ONLY 1% OF OUR USA POPULATION) SADLY ALSO CONTROL HOW OUR U.S.CONGRESS SPENDS THEIR BUDGET TRILLION$ AND HAVE OBVIOUSLY FOUND MORE WORTHY INTERNATIONAL CITIZENS THEN OUR OWN DESPERATE AND NEEDY POOR TO ASSIST !!!
~Poorer Americans Nationwide only get 400 million $$$ per year for legal representation allocated them by CONGRESS~
Middle Class and Working Poor Americans are unable to afford proper legal representation in their Civil, Criminal and Family Courts of law all across America causing tremendous hardships nationwide,but these great minds and callous hearts in our American Congress have found others Worldwide more needy then their own citizens who are being falsely incarcerated,wrongfuly executed,losing their homes or apartments,losing child custody or visitation with their children etc…
Not being afforded proper legal representation by our U.S. Congress has created a total breakdown of the American judicial system for our poorer Americans because the our U.S. Courts punish all of us little people if we are not assisted with proprer legal counsel.it is a known fact that our average Middle Class and Working Poor Americans without proper legal representation in all of our American Courts of law lose their legal cases to the better financed who are able to afford lawyers.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is now actively in the hunt for International Countries and Leaders Worldwide to help raise 5 Billion Dollar$ for our slighted poorer Americans who have had their own American Congress turn their backs on their desperate needs in not affording them proper legal representation.
Troy Davis and Mumia Abu – Jamal are 2 perfect examples of American citizens who never had proper legal representation afforded them by our U.S. Congressional Leaders Of The Free World in their initial criminal trials in (Georgia and Pennsylvania) who might very well have to pay the ultimate price of possibly being completely innocent and falsely executed in the near future.
This is the first of many www International pleas by Lawyers For Poor Americans for other leaders and countries to help raise the needed monie$ to correct these blatant injustices that have been inflicted on poorer Americans for the last few decades.
Lawyers For Poor Americans has many other written articles that can be viewed with any www search engine by our name or our telephone number.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is a www lobby group of volunteers that sing out about the decades old neglect,abuse and injustices being inflicted on our poorer Americans that have become Crimes Against Humanity issues for the International World Court to investigate.
lawyersforpooreramericans@yahoo.com
(424-247-2013)
Comment posted September 21, 2009 @ 4:06 am
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