Court Stays Execution of Inmate Whose Case Gained National Attention

Sept. 23, 2008— -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a last-minute, temporary reprieve to a death row inmate in Georgia whose case has gained national attention.

Troy Anthony Davis, 39, was scheduled to be executed tonight for the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer, though several key witnesses have recanted their incriminating testimony.

The Supreme Court, in a brief order, temporarily stayed the execution until Monday, when the court was already scheduled to meet to decide if it would hear Davis' appeal. The court usually declines to hear such cases.

If the court does not agree to hear the appeal, Davis will still be executed.

Davis' case has attracted international attention because seven of the nine witnesses who testified against him in his 1991 murder trial have since recanted, several of them saying they felt pressured by police to lie on the stand and implicate Davis. There was no physical evidence tying Davis to the murder of Officer Mark MacPhail and several new witnesses have come forward to implicate another man in the crime, Davis' lawyers say.

Former President Carter, former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr and Pope Benedict XVI, among others, have called on the state parole board to reduce Davis' sentence to life in prison. The board earlier this month rejected Davis' clemency petition after what it called an exhaustive review of the evidence in his case.

Stephen Bright, a professor at Yale Law School and director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, called the original timing of Davis' execution "unseemly."

"All across the spectrum of people's views on criminal justice, there's near unanimity that this trial was not reliable," he said. "We can't say with certainty that this man is guilty of this crime. In fact the probability is he is not guilty."

A spokesman for the Georgia Attorney General's Office declined to comment on pending litigation. In court papers, the state has asked the Supreme Court not to stay the execution and has argued that the recantations are not enough to grant Davis a new trial.

Several courts have agreed, saying there was not enough evidence that Davis received a constitutionally unfair trial. By a 4-3 decision, the state Supreme Court in March found that the new evidence probably would not have produced a different verdict at trial.