ATLANTA — With a Bible under her arm, Virginia Davis on Tuesday led human rights advocates to the building that houses Georgia's Board of Pardon and Paroles. All she wants, she said, is for someone to listen to the facts in her son's case before it's too late.
Troy Anthony Davis, 38, convicted of the murder of a Savannah police officer, is scheduled to be executed next week.
Yet a growing number of human rights activists are urging Georgia officials to consider new evidence that might prove his innocence. Thus far, state appeals courts have declined to hear his case.
Since Davis' 1991 trial, which was based entirely on witness testimony, seven of the nine witnesses who implicated Davis have renounced or contradicted their trial testimony, with many claiming they were intimidated by police.
One of the two remaining witnesses, defense attorneys say, is a principal suspect, who has himself been incriminated by nine witnesses.
"We have the evidence," said Virginia Davis, 62. "All we need is someone to listen."
Davis appears to be caught in legal limbo. His initial state habeas corpus petition was handled by attorneys from an underfunded defender organization that lacked the resources to investigate his case. After that, his petition was denied on the grounds that evidence of police coercion of witnesses was "procedurally defaulted," meaning it should have been raised earlier.
"I think it's a sad day in Georgia ... that they're willing to try and kill an innocent man," Davis said in a rare telephone interview with reporters Monday. "I don't want to die, especially for a crime I didn't commit."
Davis' case, legal experts say, is a stark reminder of the legal hurdles death row inmates must overcome, particularly in Georgia, which, like Alabama, does not guarantee death row inmates counsel for appeals.
Last year, experts from Georgia's legal community produced a report, sponsored by the American Bar Assn., recommending that Georgia impose a moratorium on executions because the state could not ensure fairness and accuracy in every capital case. Among other things, it cited racial disparity in capital sentencing, with those convicted of killing whites 4.5 times more likely to be sentenced to death as those convicted of killing blacks.
In this case, the officer killed was white; Davis is black.
The state parole board is scheduled to hear an appeal for clemency from Davis' lawyers Monday, a day before Davis is set to be executed by lethal injection at a state prison in Jackson, Ga.
