Crime & Justice, Headlines, Human Rights, North America

DEATH PENALTY-US: High Court Won’t Revisit “Dubious” Conviction

Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON, Jun 26 2007 (IPS) - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Georgia, thereby removing one of the final obstacles to his execution.

Anti-death penalty advocates have contended that Davis’ case deserves to be reviewed since evidence crucial to his defence was not heard during his trial.

In 1991, Davis was found guilty of the murder of police officer Mark McPhail despite the lack of any physical evidence. No murder weapon was ever found.

“The Supreme Court decision is proof-positive that justice truly is blind – blind to coerced and recanted testimony, blind to the lack of a murder weapon or physical evidence and blind to the extremely dubious circumstances that led to this man’s conviction,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA).

“At times there are cases that are emblematic of the dysfunctional application of justice in this country. By refusing to review serious claims of innocence, the Supreme Court has revealed catastrophic flaws in the U.S. death penalty machine.”

Opponents of the death penalty have also pointed to the fact that Davis is African American while McPhail was white as a longtime disturbing trend in U.S. death penalty convictions.

“Where there is an execution, about 80 percent of the victims in the murder have been white,” Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, told IPS. “What really tells if you’ll get the death penalty isn’t if you’re black or white but if the victim was white.”

Thirty-four percent of all inmates executed since 1976 have been African American, while 79 percent of all victims in death penalty cases were white, according to statistics from the Death Penalty Information Centre that were updated this week.

Altogether, nearly 42 percent of those sitting on U.S. death rows are African American, 10 percent are Hispanic and 45 percent are white.

Prosecutors built their case on nine civilian witnesses who claimed that Davis was the assailant. Since the conviction, seven of the witnesses have recanted their testimony in sworn statements and several have claimed that they were coerced into testifying by the police.

According to Amnesty, “One witness signed a police statement declaring that Davis was the assailant, then later said, ‘I did not read it because I cannot read.’ In another case a witness stated that the police ‘were telling me that I was an accessory to murder and that I would… go to jail for a long time and I would be lucky if I ever got out, especially because a police officer got killed… I was only 16 and was so scared of going to jail’.”.

“Frequently new evidence is looked at suspiciously by courts,” said Dieter. “Courts look upon that type of evidence as not as reliable as what is presented at trial but sometimes new evidence is more reliable.”

The case is further clouded by several witnesses saying another man, Sylvester Cole, has acknowledged his guilt in the murder.

Last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Davis’ appeal, making the Supreme Court his last chance for reversing the sentence.

Davis’ anticipated appeal for clemency to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will be the final legal challenge to his execution.

The U.S. has conducted 1,080 executions since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Thirty-eight states plus the U.S. government and the military use the death penalty while 12 states do not practice capital punishment.

A May 2006 Gallup poll showed that support among U.S. citizens for the death penalty had decreased to 65 percent from 80 percent in 1994. The number of death penalty sentences handed down decreased to 128 in 2005 from highs of 315 in 1994 and 1995, and the increased use of DNA evidence has cast doubt on a number of capital punishment cases.

So far, 124 people have been released from death rows across the country. Inmate advocates say it just a matter of time before definitive proof emerges that an innocent person has been executed.

In another death penalty case this month, the Supreme Court ruled that judges and prosecutors can eliminate jurors who express reservations about capital punishment from participating in such cases, in a decision the Boston Globe said would “stack juries toward death” and which some legal experts predicted would disproportionately affect potential African American jurors.