Showing posts with label Troy Davis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Troy Davis. Show all posts

Friday, September 23, 2011

Cop killer Troy Davis fooled many, and was supported by many who ignored his lies. He deserved to die, but cheated his fate for 20 years.

Verne Strickland Blogmaster / September 23, 2011

ERICK ERICKSON, A JOURNALIST I ADMIRE GREATLY, WROTE THIS PIECE ON THE NIGHT COP KILLER TROY DAVIS WAS PUT TO DEATH BY LETHAL INJECTION. BY ERICKSON'S RECKONING, SPELLED OUT HERE IN DETAIL, DAVIS WAS NOT ONLY A MURDERER BUT A SCURRILOUS CHARLATAN. I AGREE. LIBERAL PROPAGANDISTS HAVE MANIPULATED THIS CASE SHAMEFULLY. THIS IS THE TRUE STORY OF TROY DAVIS' DUPLICITY. THIS MAN WITHOUT HONOR DESERVED HIS FATE. HE HAS DONE AN INJUSTICE TO BLACK AMERICA.


Tonight the United States Supreme Court declined to stay Troy Davis’s execution. He will, by the time many of you are reading this, be dead. There were no expressions of dissent or objection from any of the 9 members of the Supreme Court.

I like Guy Benson a lot, but his column on Troy Davis got my blood pressure up.

I’m hearing a lot from people opposed to Troy Davis’s execution that there is no physical evidence in the case — and a whole lot of other hoo-haa.

First of all, let’s set out that the case has been going on for twenty years.

Second, let’s point out that two witnesses at Davis’s trial testified under oath that Troy Davis admitted to the shooting.

Yes, those witnesses have now, twenty years and much badgering by anti-death penalty advocates later, recanted. A federal judge spent two days reviewing the evidence and the testimony last year and issued a 172 page order explaining why the witnesses recanting was “smoke and mirrors.”

In fact, one of the chief nuggets of the case is that there was no physical evidence. Except that is crap. There is the matter of Troy Davis’s bloody clothes that you’ve probably never heard of.




There was a .38 caliber gun. Both Troy Davis and the man Davis’s team claims in the real murderer, Sylvester Coles, had a .38 caliber gun.

Davis’s gun had been used in another shooting and the gun casing were linked between both shootings.

Everyone likes to gloss over that. They point out that the man who claimed Davis fired on him has now recanted — yet again 20 years later.

But here are some additional facts — if we’re going to deal with things that weren’t in contention twenty years ago.

The federal courts and state courts in Georgia have all denied Davis’s appeal. Prior to 2008, Georgia’s Supreme Court was decidedly liberal and even they passed.

For the first time in 50 years the United States Supreme Court ordered a federal court to conduct an entire rehearing of all the evidence. The court did and found all the new stuff was, again, “smoke and mirrors,” including the retracted confessions. And while building the case to claim that Sylvester Coles was the real murderer, the defense would not call Coles in for examination.

But then there is Officer MacPhail himself and what the defense all too conveniently forgets to bring up.

Officer MacPhail “testified” at Troy Davis’s murder trial. See, MacPhail, an Army Ranger and police officer was working a second job that night as a security guard. He chased Davis and Sylvester Coles, who were assaulting a homeless man over a beer.

MacPhail reported in that he had run past Sylvester Coles. MacPhail was shot from the front in the chest and face — not from behind where Coles was, but from the front where MacPhail himself located Troy Davis.

And then, if we really want to get into the weeds and talk about facts, consider this fact. Troy Davis immediately became the suspect and fled. Police roped off his house, obtained entry, and searched the home. In the laundry they found Troy Davis’s shorts from that night with evidence on the clothing directly tying him to Officer MacPhail’s murder — Officer MacPhail’s blood. (editorial note: it should be noted that Troy Davis’s shorts were not DNA tested. There were multiple people’s blood on his shorts.)

According to Darrell Collins, who is now recanting everything or claiming not to remember anything, Davis admitted to Collins that Davis had shot MacPhail in the chest and then went back to shoot MacPhail in the head at close range because MacPhail had seen his face — hence MacPhail’s blood on Davis’s shorts.
Oh, and at the time Collins gave his statement way back in 1989 it was not public knowledge that Officer MacPhail had been shot in the chest and then at close range in the face.

(Remember as well that there were 34 witnesses, not the 9 as claimed. The defense claims seven witnesses changed their testimony. That’s actually not true. Only two materially changed their testimony and Davis’s attorneys refused to present those two in federal court in 2010 to be examined in the evidentiary hearing even though they sat outside the courtroom door. Among the eyewitnesses were three airmen in the Air Force in a bus who had prime viewing for the murder and all identified Troy Davis as the wearer of the white Batman t-shirt, which is what the murderer wore.)

Of course, this justice system that is supposedly about to carry out a travesty of justice ordered Davis’s shorts excluded as evidence from the trial because the police did not get a search warrant. So anti-death penalty advocates can conveniently say there is no physical evidence by discounting the gun, the casings, and ignoring Officer MacPhail’s blood on Troy Davis’s clothes found in Troy Davis’s laundry all because the very same court system that found him guilty without that physical evidence followed the law and excluded it.

Troy Davis is a cop killer and I’m perfectly fine with his execution.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Supreme Court refuses to stop Davis execution; murdered policeman had no appeal or clemency.

Image: Police detain a man Wednesday as demonstrators call for Georgia officials to halt the scheduled execution of convicted cop killer Troy Davis at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia.
Erik S. Lesser  /  AFP - Getty Images
 
Police detain a man Wednesday as demonstrators call for Georgia officials to halt the scheduled execution of convicted cop killer Troy Davis at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia.
NBC News and news services


The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday rejected an 11th hour request to block the execution of convicted killer Troy Davis, who convinced thousands but not the justice system to support his claims of innocence in the murder of an off-duty police officer. 

The decision was delivered with no comment from the court more than three hours after the 7 p.m. ET scheduled execution.

State officials had waited for a response from the Supreme Court, which had no deadline for a decision. The execution was expected to go forward about 30 minutes after the Supreme Court decision was revealed.

"We are in a delay, waiting for a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court," Peggy Chapman of the Georgia Department of Corrections told NBC News earlier. "There has not been a reprieve issued."

The state was under no obligation to wait but did so, NBC News reported.

Hundreds of Davis supporters had gathered outside the Jackson prison and lined a nearby highway. Crowds cheered and sang "We Shall Overcome" as news of the lethal-injection delay spread. Police in full riot gear were on hand to deal with any possible disturbance if the execution goes ahead.

But as the minutes, then hours, passed, the crowd dwindled to about 50.

The last-ditch effort with the U.S. Supreme Court came just 45 minutes before the execution was scheduled and after state officials refused to grant Davis a reprieve in the face of calls for clemency from former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and others.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Georgia's Supreme Court had rejected a last appeal by Davis’ lawyers. Earlier, a Butts County Superior Court judge also declined to stop the execution.

Davis was convicted in the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

In their U.S. Supreme Court filing, Davis' attorneys said "substantial constitutional errors" were made when the lower courts denied his claims that "newly available evidence reveals that false, misleading and materially inaccurate information was presented at his capital trial in 1989, rendering the convictions and death sentence fundamentally unreliable," NBC News reported.

The lawyers said they've been struggling to get these claims heard in the lower courts "after having a grueling clemency process."

There was no guarantee justices would act in time to stop the execution, but they likely knew the filing was coming, NBC News said.

Image: Mark MacPhail
Mark MacPhail 
 
Davis and his supporters have maintained his innocence. Prosecutors have stood by the case. 
 
Davis' supporters held vigils outside Georgia's death row and as far away as London and Paris. They also tried increasingly frenzied measures, urging prison workers to stay home and even posting a judge's phone number online, hoping people will press him to put a stop to the lethal injection.

"We're trying everything we can do, everything under the law," said Chester Dunham, a civil rights activist and talk show host protesting in Savannah, where MacPhail, 27, was killed.

Outside the Jackson prison that houses Georgia's death row, about 100 people, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, gathered Wednesday afternoon for a prayer rally. As they shouted, "Free Troy Davis!" a man in a red SUV drove by and shouted, "Kill him! Kill him!"

Several dozen people gathered outside the White House to protest the execution. They held signs condemning it as a "lynching" and chanted "Too much doubt" and "What do we want? Justice!"


Davis' execution has been stopped three times since 2007, but on Wednesday the 42-year-old appeared to be out of legal options.


 
 

Black murderer faces death by lethal injection 7 pm ET tonight; killed white officer.

By Verne Strickland / September 21, 2011

BLACK ACTIVISTS SAY BLACK LIFE HAS NO VALUE IN THE U.S. THE FAMILY OF THE MURDERED WHITE OFFICER CAN SEE OTHER SIDE OF THAT COIN.

Troy Davis should die today. 7 pm sharp ET.

I say "should die" because the convicted murderer is only now facing justice for a heartless crime he committed on Saturday, August 19, 1989 -- twenty-two years ago. 

If a white cop (not an officer or policeman) shoots a black man, our liberal race-baiting media work frantically to start World War III. In this case, the tables were turned, as Troy Davis a black man, murdered Officer Mark MacPhail, Jr., in cold blood. MacPhail's young family -- including his wife and their two infant children. MacPhail was white.

Since the media has had almost two decades to build up a head of steam over the fate that awaited the killer, I decided to make an effort to breathe some humanity into the victim of the shooting. If you think that the murderer deserves a break, read the line below about how Officer MacPhail was killed.

This notice was published on a national site named the Officer Down Memorial Page:


Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, Sr. | Savannah Police Department, Georgia Savannah Police Department, Georgia

Officer

Mark Allen MacPhail, Sr.

Savannah Police Department, Georgia

End of Watch: Saturday, August 19, 1989
Biographical Info
Age: 27
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: Not available
Military veteran

Incident Details

Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: August 19, 1989
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: Sentenced to death

Officer Mark MacPhail was shot and killed while working an off duty security job at a bus station. He was shot while attempting to break up a fight in the parking lot of a nearby fast food restaurant.


The man shot him underneath his vest and then again in the head as he fell.


The subject was sentenced to death. On March 28, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the man's appeal.


Officer MacPhail was a U.S. Army veteran and had served with the Savannah Police Department for three years. He was survived by his wife, 1-year-old daughter, infant son, mother, and siblings.

http://www.odmp.org/officer/8410-officer-mark-allen-macphail-sr 



Troy Davis' Execution Eve Sees Final Efforts To Save His Life 

JACKSON, GA September 21, 2011 -- While the Davis family prepared for the end of what has been a decades-long fight to prove Davis' innocence, another family rejoiced.

"That's what we wanted, and that's what we got," Anneliese MacPhail, the victim's mother, told the Associated Press. "We wanted to get it over with, and for him to get his punishment."

"Justice was finally served for my father," said Mark MacPhail Jr., the son of the dead officer, Mark MacPhail.

But for Troy Davis' family and his supporters, the looming finality of the board's decision to carry out his execution, sent a very different message.

"It is bigger than Troy. It really reflects the attitude of a country and a state that still sees black life as meaningless," said Edward DuBose. "That is the only conclusion that you could come away with from the decision made by the parole board."

In the decades since his conviction, his case has gained the support of former President Jimmy Carter, former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, one-time FBI Director William Sessions, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI.

Earlier this year the U.S. Supreme Court turned down what likely was Davis' last set of appeals. In 2009, Davis, by filing an original writ of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court, convinced the justices to order a federal court in Georgia to review new evidence that Davis said would establish his innocence. By then, according to reports, several of the witnesses had recanted their earlier testimony that Davis had gunned down officer MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot that night 20 years earlier.

The new hearing in June of 2010 gave Davis a chance to present his new evidence in his defense. He chose not to take the stand or call on witnesses who had given statements on his behalf. The trial judge concluded that Davis' evidence was "largely smoke and mirrors," according to a New York Times article from earlier this year. The Supreme Court refused to review Moore's ruling.

"I wanted to believe that we had abandoned the Old South, but the decision by the parole board not only reflects that we have not abandoned the Old South, but we have not even left the days of Jim Crow," said DuBose, who at 53 said he can recall the last days of cradle-to-grave segregation in Georgia.

"I think it's a message that they said during Jim Crow: Stay in your place. It is a message to every African American, whether you are guilty or innocent, that there is a place for you and you need to stay in it."