A US Supreme Court-ordered hearing into potentially exonerating evidence for high-profile death row inmate Troy Davis got underway yesterday, with capital punishment opponents gathering here ahead of the landmark case.
The unusual new hearing in federal court in the southern city of Savannah stems from a US Supreme Court order last year that Davis, now 41, should receive a new hearing to determine whether evidence not available at his murder trial proves him innocent.
“This hearing is both historic and unprecedented,” Amnesty International USA executive director Larry Cox said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Never before has the US Supreme Court ordered a hearing to determine if it is unconstitutional to execute someone who is innocent,” he said, adding that “while this hearing is of the utmost importance to Davis and the entire Savannah community, it also carries great legal significance.”
Davis, who is black, was sentenced to death for the 1989 Savannah murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a white policeman. He has always maintained his innocence.
In 1991, nine witnesses testified against him, but seven of them have since said they were pressured by police at the time. The weapon used in the murder was never found, and neither DNA evidence nor fingerprints implicated Davis in the crime.
Cox said the case against Davis had “unraveled,” since so many of the witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony.
But he charged that the age-old legal standard in which the defendant has the presumption of innocence “has been turned on its head.”
The Supreme Court, Cox said, has “set a very high bar: rather than ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ Davis must clearly prove he is innocent.”
The Supreme Court decision was a rare case in which the court responded to evidence of innocence and not judicial error. However, in the new hearing, Davis will have to prove his innocence, unlike at a normal trial.
The issues involved may prove enlightening at the hearing, also, as US District Judge William Moore has ordered defense and prosecution lawyers argue the legal issues involved, along with the evidence in the case.
“Because this case presents novel questions of law and requires factual findings, the court will accept both factual evidence and legal briefing,” Moore instructed the lawyers.
With its racial overtones and Davis’ continued claims of innocence, the case has triggered an international outcry, including from the EU, whose member states oppose any use of capital punishment, as well as from Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and Pope Benedict XVI.
Anti-execution campaigners from as far away as France and Britain joined US activists at a vigil late on Tuesday near the courthouse where the hearing was to take place.
“I’m really excited about the hearing,” Davis’ sister Martina Correia said.
“I’m worried about my brother’s safety, but I think that having press in the courtroom, maybe people will get some report about the real facts on this case,” she said.
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