Witnesses admit lies in Troy Davis death row hearing

[cal04]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0623/lies-troy-davis-death-row-hearing/

A string of witnesses admitted Wednesday giving false testimony at the 1991 trial of a convicted murderer who has spent almost two decades on death row in the United States.

The admissions came at a special hearing ordered by the US Supreme Court to give Troy Davis, now 41, another chance to prove his innocence in a highly unusual case that has garnered international attention.

The witnesses, some of whom were illiterate, in prison, or in their teens when they originally testified, provided the key evidence that convicted Davis, an African-American, of murdering white off-duty police officer Mark McPhail.

Davis, now 41, has always proclaimed his innocence over the 1989 murder, and one-by-one on Wednesday, witnesses admitted their lies and recanted their testimony.



Witnesses back off testimony against Troy Davis
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/witnesses-back-off-testimony-555778.html

[EFerrari]

1. Kick!

[JonLP24]

2. K&R

:kick:

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Just one of the reasons to be against the death penalty.. .. .

in any and ALL cases, no matter how heinous, no matter how depraved, no matter anything.

K & R

TG, NTY

[handmade34]

4. thanks for the update...

wish I could do more than cross my fingers and hope

[Tim4319]

5. Thank God this case was not tried in Texas!

[Heywood J]

6. Obviously the hearing order wasn't signed onto by Scalia.

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.

:puke:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. Not that I am looking to defend Scalia

and I don't doubt he believes that, but he was expressing frustration at the federal courts being used as a garbage disposal for wrongful convictions by the states which he argued was the role of the state courts of executive pardon and it was ridiculous that wrongful conviction cases were going all the way to the supreme court.

[BzaDem]

9. Part of the problem though was that no court had actually had a hearing to look at the evidence.

Some courts have ruled that he is not entitled to relief for procedural reasons, and some others said (by simply looking at affidavits) that the case was unpersuasive. But no court actually had a hearing where they could call the witnesses themselves to hear them and judge their credibility.

While there was a review as part of the clemency process, that doesn't completely suffice. The 8th amendment (and in general the Constitution) specifically took certain powers out of the realm of the executive/legislature. So the judging of 8th amendment claims shouldn't be done solely by the executive.

If there was a state court hearing where they actually called witnesses, it might be a different story. But surely Scalia can't be right when he said that an absolutely dispositive claim of innocence does not merit judicial review and action.

[readmoreoften]

7. This case is such a travesty. It's likely the real killer was one of the witnesses against Davis.

I've read that it's highly likely that the police shifted the blame to protect one of their most useful informants. I hope Troy Davis wins his freedom.

[ck4829]

10. Watch the people chairing this hearing call it all irrelevant, though. K&R.

"Evidence? You don't need no stinkin' evidence! Innocent until proven guilty? Ha!"