With only a few hours left, advocates for Troy Davis race for a stay of execution
Activists and lawyers are scrambling to get an 11th-hour stay of execution for a Georgia man due to be put to death tonight, despite strong doubts over his conviction, reports the AFP. Death row prisoner Troy Davis, a 39-year-old African-American man, is scheduled to be executed tonight in Georgia despite widespread concern Davis is an innocent man. Davis has been on death row since 1991 for the murder of white policeman Mark MacPhail.
The original witness testimonies were the backbone of the prosecution's case against Davis because of the absence of a murder weapon, fingerprints and DNA evidence. Since Davis' trial, seven of nine key prosecution witnesses who testified against him have recanted their testimony, and Davis' attorneys say that others claim another man pulled the trigger, reports the AP.
Amnesty International has heavily criticized Davis' conviction. Protesters have been gathering at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta all week. Davis's case has also attracted international attention-influential advocates, including former President Jimmy Carter, South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Pope Benedict XVI, insist that there's enough doubt about Davis' guilt to merit a new trial. Davis' only hope for a reprieve lies with the U.S. Supreme Court. The court could decide within hours, reports the AP.
"The world is watching Georgia," Martina Correia, Davis' sister, told the AP. "Everything you do in the dark always comes back to light."
"Race is everything in this case," Rep. John Lewis told Democracy Now! this morning. "This is a case involving a young African American male and a young white male police officer. And the cards are stacked against this young black man. This has a long history. This is not something that just happened in the past few years, but has been a long history in the state of Georgia, and especially in the American South, of being so quick and so apt to electrocute or provide capital punishment for low-income people and for people of color."
