ATLANTA - Attorneys for death row inmate Troy Davis asked the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday for a new trial, and warned that the wrong man is scheduled to be executed.
In a case that has drawn fierce protest from death penalty opponents, Davis' attorneys argued that new testimony proves their client's innocence and implicates another man.
"This is a case of mistaken identity," said Jason Ewart, an attorney for Davis, who added that the amount of new evidence justifies a new trial. "There's no case like this."
Prosecutors say the case is closed and new evidence can't be considered. They chastised defense attorneys for holding the evidence in their "back pocket" and unleashing it days before their client was scheduled to be executed.
Attorneys representing Davis are using a unique Georgia law - which experts say is the only one of its kind in the nation - that allows inmates to seek a completely new trial after exhausting other appeals.
Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of 27-year-old Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.
The officer, who was working off-duty as a security guard at a bus station, rushed to help a homeless man who had been pistol-whipped at a nearby parking lot. When he approached Davis and two other men, he was shot in the face and the chest and fell to the ground, mortally wounded.
Witnesses identified Davis as the shooter. A jury convicted him in 1991 and sentenced him to death. At the trial, prosecutors said he wore a "smirk on his face" as he fired the gun, according to records.
But Davis' lawyers say new evidence could exonerate their client and prove him a victim of mistaken identity. Several witnesses who initially testified against Davis have since recanted or contradicted their testimony. And three others who did not testify have said another man, Sylvester "Red" Coles - who testified against Davis at trial - confessed to the killing.
"He pointed the finger at Mr. Davis to save his own skin," Ewart said of Coles, adding that Coles had the "motive, opportunity and means" to commit the crime.
Coles refused to talk about the case when contacted by The Associated Press during a recent Chatham County court appearance on an unrelated traffic charge, and he has no listed phone number.
Prosecutors call the witness statements "suspect," and say some of the witness affidavits simply repeat what a trial jury has already heard, while others are irrelevant because they come from witnesses who never testified.
David Lock, an assistant district attorney for Chatham County, said the defense is trying to convince the court there was a "grand conspiracy" by police to land a conviction.
"It's easy to understand how in the future, over the years, witnesses who knew the defendant - lived in the same neighborhood - could be coerced themselves," he said. "If there's any conspiracy theory, it's after the trial, not before it."
He also questioned the legitimacy of affidavits, which he said fail to prove that Davis should be granted a new trial.
"They just submitted affidavits and did not go into the background of how they were obtained," Lock said of the defense attorneys.
The outcome will be closely watched in the Georgia Capitol, where Davis' case is frequently cited by advocates of new statewide standards to govern eyewitness identification. Death penalty critics, meanwhile, present Davis as an example of the uncertainties of capital punishment.
The packed courtroom was filled with observers. MacPhail's family and allies from the Fraternal Order of Police sat on one side and relatives and supporters of Davis on the other.
Two of the court's seven justices - including Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears - were not at the hearing, but court officials said they will review videotaped clips of the arguments. A decision is not likely for weeks, but the significance of the hearing seemed to buoy Davis' relatives.
"We were waiting on this for a long time. All we wanted was for Troy to have his fair trial," said his mother, Virginia Davis. "It is never too late to hear new evidence when someone is fighting for his life. We're going to have a new trial for Troy - and we're going to free him."
Monday
October 14th, 2024
12:27PM
