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US High Court Delays Decision on Death Row Inmate
WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court has quietly put off deciding whether it will take up the case of black death row inmate Troy Davis who for 20 years has insisted he did not kill a white policeman, a source close to Davis said Tuesday.
"The US Supreme Court called Troy's lawyer -- there will be no decision (which also means no execution date) until their court reconvenes in September," Sara Totonchi, head of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which supports Davis, said in an email sent to AFP.
Davis's lawyer was not available for comment.
The justices delayed a decision in Davis's case without explanation on Monday, the last day of the Supreme Court's term before a long summer recess.
Davis has been in jail for 18 years for the murder in 1989 of white police officer Mark Allen MacPhail.
Now 41, Davis has repeatedly said he did not kill MacPhail, and seven out of nine witnesses who gave evidence at his trial in 1991 have recanted or changed their testimony.
No murder weapon was ever found, no DNA evidence or fingerprints tie him to the crime, which other witnesses have since said was committed by another man -- a state's witness who testified against Davis.
Davis has won several 11th-hour stays of execution since July 2007, when he was originally sentenced to die for murdering MacPhail.
One of the stays was granted by the Supreme Court in September last year, less than two hours before Davis was due to be put to death.
Around two weeks later, the high court refused to consider the constitutionality of executing a person when there is new evidence to show he was not guilty of the crime he stands accused of, and referred Davis's case back to the lower courts.
In April, a court in Georgia denied Davis a retrial but granted him another stay of execution to allow lawyers to take his case back to the Supreme Court.
With its racial overtones and Davis's continued claims of innocence, the case has triggered an international outcry, including from the European Union, whose 27 member states oppose any use of capital punishment, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and Pope Benedict XVI.
3 Comments so far
Show All3rd to last paragraph reads "around two weeks later, the high court refused to consider the constitutionality of executing a person....
Roberts' dominated SCOTUS refuses to look at whether or not it would be cruel or unusual punishment to kill an person that might not have committed the crime. In Kafkaesque Amerika, I guess that wouldn't be unusual at all, just ask Innocence Project clients in Texas or Virginia, amongst others. Why those states? Because if it can't be introduced within 30 days of your initial conviction, then those states SC have ruled it can't be introduced at all and US SCOTUS has so far upheld those rulings.
Maybe BenedictXVI will excommunicate any black robed bigots that let Troy die.
The USA has a long, long way to go before it can be accepted as a role model for the rest of the world. There is a certain 'refusal to learn' in the psyche of a large part of the population, and unfortunately many of these are in powerful positions. I've seen so many so-called "pro-life" supporters that are also strongly in favor or capital punishment, when there is a growing list of countries around the world that have abolished the death sentence. The hypocrisy is unbelievable - whichever angle you look at - religious, moral...whichever way you look at it. How can these people sleep at night knowing that they've just committed a man to die, while there's the possibility that he's innocent? They can do that because they can hide behind their "respectability" in society.