NAACP And Amnesty International Still Support Davis

The NAACP issued a statement Friday saying the organization stands by death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis and believes he did not kill a Savannah police officer in 1989.  At the same time, Amnesty International issued a "briefing paper" analyzing the decision of U.S. District Judge William Moore, Jr., and indicated that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles should still commute Troy Davis's death sentence.

Read Amnesty International's document here.

In June, Judge Moore presided over an evidentiary hearing in federal court in Savannah in which Davis was allowed to present evidence trying to prove he did not commit the murder.  A number of witnesses who had testified at the Davis trial in 1991, recanted testimony in June, saying that Davis was not the killer of MacPhail.  Several witnesses pointed the guilt toward another man, who had testified against Davis in 1991.

Judge Moore issued a ruling this week indicating that Davis had not prove his innocence and that courts look at recanted testimony as suspicious.  Judge Moore said "the new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on Davis's conviction, but it's largely smoke and mirrors."  The judge also wrote "the new evidence is not credible."

NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous responds with ""The NAACP is deeply disappointed in the decision by a Georgia federal district judge who ruled Tuesday that death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis did not prove his innocence in an evidentiary hearing held earlier this summer."

"Words cannot express the disappointment of the NAACP as we witnessed Tuesday a ruling that could put an innocent man to death," Jealous said.  "During the evidentiary hearing, witness testimony raised serious doubt as to Troy's guilt.  There was testimony from witnesses who admitted in court to lying when they implicated Troy Davis as the one who shot Officer MacPhail; there were witnesses who implicated another man as the one who killed the officer, including a man who said he saw the shooting and could identify the alternative suspect; finally three of the original state witnesses described police coercion during questioning.  American morality should not stand for the execution of an innocent man and we will do all we can to stop this travesty of justice."

Davis was convicted in 1991of killing Officer Mark MacPhail.  Davis supporters contend that no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime (no weapon was ever found) and that the case against Davis consisted entirely of witness testimonies which were found at the time of trial to contain inconsistencies.  The NAACP says "seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis have recanted or contradicted their original testimony.  One of the witnesses, who has not recanted is the prime alternative suspect in the case. Troy had no criminal record and since he has been in prison has been a model prisoner and valuable mentor to his young nephew."

"The NAACP Georgia State Conference is disappointed in Judge William T. Moore's ruling on Tuesday," Ed Dubose, NAACP Georgia State Conference President.  "We maintain our position that Troy Anthony Davis is an innocent man on death row for a crime that he did not commit.  We are more determined than ever before to fight on for justice for Troy Anthony Davis," concluded Dubose.

On Friday, Amnesty International also released what it termed a briefing paper on Judge Moore's ruling saying "Relied upon by the prosecution as credible witnesses in 1991, the state today portrays their revised testimony or recantations as 'untrustworthy' and 'unreliable'."   

Amnesty International also wrote: "If the state's case is not "ironclad", to borrow Judge Moore's description, it means there is room for an alternative explanation of the facts. The Board of Pardons and Paroles should commute Troy Davis's death sentence. After all, it said in this case in 2007 that it would not allow an execution to go ahead 'unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.' The Board does not have to apply the "extraordinarily high" burden adopted by Judge Moore. And the power of executive clemency must assume its role as a genuine 'failsafe'."