The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole has denied clemency for death-row inmate Troy Davis.
Davis was convicted of the 1989 killing of Savannah, Georgia, police officer Mark MacPhail.
Davis is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia.
"Monday September 19, 2011, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a clemency request from attorneys representing condemned inmate Troy Anthony Davis. After considering the request, the Board has voted to deny clemency," the board said in a statement Tuesday morning.
The five-member parole board votes in a secret ballot.
Davis has gained international support for his long-standing claim that he did not kill MacPhail. International figures including Pope Benedict XVI, Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter, entertainers such as Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte, and the Indigo Girls, and others have joined with Amnesty International, the NAACP and other groups in supporting Davis' efforts to be exonerated.
He has been scheduled to die three times before, most recently in October 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay two hours before he was to be executed.
Since Davis' conviction in 1991, seven of the nine witnesses against him have recanted or contradicted their testimony. There also have been questions about the physical evidence - and, according to some, the lack thereof - linking Davis to the killing.
Amnesty International reacted angrily to the clemency denial on Tuesday.
"It is unconscionable that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied relief to Troy Davis. Allowing a man to be sent to death under an enormous cloud of doubt about his guilt is an outrageous affront to justice," Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday.
"Should Troy Davis be executed, Georgia may well have executed an innocent man and in so doing discredited the justice system," the statement said.
But the victim's mother, Anne MacPhail, said she's satisfied that Davis will be executed.
"Well, justice is done, that's the way we look at it. That's what we wanted," the mother told CNN. "I am very convinced that he is guilty."
She said she would not attend Davis' execution but family members would be there.
Anne MacPhail said she has not forgiven the convicted of killing her son.
"Not yet, maybe sometime," she said.
The NAACP and Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty had joined Amnesty International in organizing support for Davis, setting up about 300 rallies, vigils and events worldwide in the past week or so. In addition, they said that more than 1 million people have signed a petition in support of Davis' bid to be exonerated.
In a 2008 statement, then-Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton described how Davis was at a pool party in Savannah when he shot another man, Michael Cooper, wounding him in the face. Davis was then driven to a nearby convenience store, where he pistol-whipped a homeless man, Larry Young, who'd just bought a beer.
Soon thereafter, prosecutors said, MacPhail - who was working in uniform, off-duty, at a nearby bus station and restaurant - arrived. It was then, the jury determined, that Davis shot the officer three times, including once in the face as he stood over him.
Davis' lawyers, in a federal court filing, insisted that there is "no physical evidence linking" Davis to MacPhail's murder. They point, too, to "the unremarkable conclusion" of a ballistics expert who testified that he could not find definitively that the bullets that wounded Cooper and killed MacPhail were the same.
Georgia's attorney general, in an online statement, claimed that the expert said the bullets came from the same gun type and noted that casings at the pool party shooting matched - thus came from the same firearm as - those found at MacPhail's murder scene.
Two decades ago, a jury convicted Davis on two counts of aggravated assault and one each of possessing a firearm during a crime, obstructing a law enforcement officer and murder. The latter charge led, soon thereafter, to his death sentence.
While reviewing Davis' claims of innocence last year, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia found that Davis "vastly overstates the value of his evidence of innocence."
"Some of the evidence is not credible and would be disregarded by a reasonable juror," Judge William T. Moore wrote in a 172-page opinion. "Other evidence that Mr. Davis brought forward is too general to provide anything more than smoke and mirrors."
The parole board denied had denied Davis clemency once before. The board has never changed its mind on any case in the past 33 years.
Read more CNN coverage on the Troy Davis case
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Contact us | Work for us | Help
This is the outcome that you get when convictions are tied to the re-election of judges and politicians. Popularity of decision-making trumps impartial application of the law.
You could not be more right. Its sad that politicians will kill to get re-elected.
if he is innocent, he will not be the first innocent person to die in jail ,not the last.
if he is innocent , he will not be the first person to spend 20 years in jail , nor the last. in fact approximately 25 % of worldwide prisoners are in USA (almost 2.3 millions peoples , while not all of them innocent , but i.am sure very large numbers of them should not be there., whoever when the jail is business for big corporation that run behind profit, they wish if they are 100 millions prisoners, as more peoples in prison , more business.
while ,whoever , we cannot forget,is still fair system that are been delivered by the peoples ( 12 jurors has to convicted you without single person objection ) , so to me seven peoples coming out 20 years later to claim that they have been pressure to lie, it look to me unreal, how you sleep for 20 years while you know that you did send someone to death row , or even in jail .
These people recanted years ago. They didn't wait 20 years.
i think at the very least they should grant him a new trial..rather 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man be condemned
Really? So it's better to have 100 serial killers on the loose than have one innocent man behind bars?
Laci ...you are so right! None of us are exempt from being falsely accused.............to execute an innocent man threatens all of our freedoms.....I don't know if he is guilty or not...but it would be better to have him serve life until his innocence can be proven.
The only way to protect the innocent IS to protect the guilty....everyone must be protected under the law...there is no justice when the innocent are convicted....think about it...that could be you or your child or your parents...I think that his execution should be stopped however I don't think that he should be set free until his innocence is proven.
This is not a matter of whether or not you believe murderers should be sentenced to the death penelty. This is a matter of a black man being denied justice in the face of immense doubt. There are significant reasons to believe that he is innocent. Yet we appear to be too consumed by a desire to kill to pause and consider our actions.
Racist number three, and counting.
WAY TO GO, MOM
That's what you get when you kill someone! And from what I understand you shot someone in the face earlier in the night before killing him and then you did it again, so you think you can wander the streets and kill people. No your sick and the victim's family deserves peace!!
Look at who is aligned with Georgia. When will you evolve, Georgia?
2011 – As of 5 May 2011 executions have been reported in the following 9 countries during 2011: Bangladesh, China, Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, UAE, USA.
@cruelhonesty
You should read up on it. Several of the witnesses were told by police to sign a statement in which they did not give or else. There is so much doubt in this conviction its scary. I just boggles my mind how we, as a free society can execute someone if there is a slight possibility they didn't do it. If it was my family member who was killed, I would want the right person held accountable. Not just someone held accountable. The wife said," "Well, justice is done, that's the way we look at it. That's what we wanted." So this poor guy who may be innocent gets executed because thats what she wanted. The blood is on her hands. May God have mercy on her soul.
"Better a 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man be locked up."
Really? I truelly believe that there needs to be hard evidence before we "execute" someone. I can't imagine the pain of the victim's family, my deepest sympathy is with the family.
Wonder how the victims family will feel if they can prove after execution that he was not the one who killed the cop? Who gets charged with this guys murder? The state of georgia? It think not. They will pay his family like 100K for their loss and move on and execute another innocent person. georgia, from now on you will "never be on my mind," you barbaric hillbillies. prove he is 100% guilty, then execute if you wish, but not because, well, he could be guilty so therefor we must kill him.
some common sense FINALLY! edward delequa you are hereby sentenced to death. hope you burn in hell! even in life your pleas fall upon deaf ears you are a nasty repugnant man who deserves to rot in hell for what you have done!
Could the President pardon him and just give life in prison? Any one know?
The Gov of Georgia could pardon him and give him life.
Like slavery, one day when we realize how primitive and barbaric capital punishment is and finally do away with it, we will look back in shame and think "how could our ancestors have supported such a practice." The justice system has already been discredited – there are those who have been executed who we later found out were innocent, and those who we will never know were innocent. We are the only civilized country to still execute people. Capital punishment has been proven not to deter crime, it's way more expensive than keeping someone in prison for life – so what's the point? Our sick sence of justice? Just because some people deserve to die, doesn't mean we have the right to carry it out as a state – especially with such a flawed system. Wake up.
boycot all things georgia!
wait, there's having out of georgia that is worth buying...
never mind.
Proof read before you make a stupid statement and show your ignorance.
When you hear what the witness said and what the jurors have said now, this just goes to show that our justice system is more about vengeance and less about justice. It doesn't matter who we convict, as long as we convict someone. I am not saying that he is innocent or guilty, but there sure seems to be a lot of doubt that he is guilty. And what also sucks (to a lesser degree) is the actual perpetrator of the act is still at large.
typical southern red neck legal lynching.I'm ashamed to say this but I was born there, and left just a s soon as I could, and never went back,some of my family still lives there. and yes them included the whole state revolves around total ignorance and bigotry.guilt or not they satisfy there hungry to destroy something,