Between Life and Execution: The Troy Davis Story

His name is Troy Anthony Davis and he is a Black man from Savannah Georgia on death row.

But don’t go by his name, the color of his skin, or the fact that he has been on death row for close to 20 years.

Because this is a story of what can possibly happen to you and me if we were to end up in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Add a screwed up legal system, and a dash of racism, and it could be a life in a maximum security prison, with years of no redemption.

Yes, don’t go by his name and the color of the skin. Read this story also because it could be that one time, your activism may be the difference between life and death.

Living the American Dream

She is 18 months older than him, but Martina Correia says her brother Troy and she can complete each other’s sentences. Before their life began to unravel in 1989, the Davis family lived their American dream. “My father, after he left the Military, was the Chatham County Sheriff’s Deputy. We had a brand new house, with two cars, a boat, our picket fence and dogs. We lived in a community full of middle class black people, played ball for the Police Athletic league. Troy became a junior coach. I was the tomboy but Troy was a mama’s boy. Very close to my mother, very protective of our family.

We were taught to be respectful to everyone and taught that you don’t lie, you don’t cheat and if you do something wrong, you own up.

When my sister was about 13 she suddenly became paralyzed from the neck down. Just like that..the doctors said she will never walk again. She stayed in the hospital for two years. I was in the Military, and Troy was the oldest child home. So when my sister got out of the hospital, my mother withdrew Troy from regular High School. He went to High School at night and graduated with Honors. During the day he would work and take care of my sister. He bathed her, did her hair, catheterized her, took her to physical therapy and all her doctor’s appointments. When she came home they wanted to give her an electric wheel chair. But Troy said she will walk. We got a manual wheel chair and he would take her out and tell her that if she wanted to get back to the house she will have to walk. When she graduated High School she walked across the stage with a walker because of Troy.

If you come to Savannah and ask anyone who really knew Troy, they will tell you how much people liked him. He is very bright. I was in the Military and he was getting ready to go into the Marine corps. We believed in God and the country.”

Troy was always the peace maker, says Martina, the problem solver in a conflict when people were fighting. He always tried to intervene and help resolve the disagreement. “In fact he told me, ‘ Tina if I wasn’t doing what I usually do and that’s trying to stop somebody from hurting somebody that night, I would not be here today.”

In the heat of a summer night….

19 August 1989 – Bill Clinton was celebrating a birthday but unknown to him, that night, in Savannah, near the Greyhound Bus station, events were unfolding that would forever change the lives of two families who would have little to celebrate about that night or many years to come. Bill Clinton would later, in good faith, sign a bill that would ironically shut many doors for Troy Davis, and perhaps many more like him.

The sequence of events remain murky and sticky like that night, since stories have changed several times, as years and continuous media reports add to new twists and turns. But what has not changed is the fact that a young 27 year old Police Officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, lost his life in a senseless, brutal murder and Troy Davis was the young man who supposedly did it.

Patrick Rodgers, a journalist who moved to Savannah four years ago, described the events in a well researched story in the South Magazine, a bi-monthly out of Savannah, Georgia.

“In the early morning hours of Saturday, August 19, 1989, an urgent call went out across all of Savannah’s police and emergency response radio frequencies—an officer had been shot—and in a matter of minutes, units swarmed around the bus station parking lot from as far away as Oglethorpe Mall. Drenched in swirling red and blue siren light, and overwhelmed by emotion at the sight of a violently-executed colleague, police combed the area for witnesses and evidence. But as the sun slowly rose from the depths of the Atlantic to illuminate the west side of Oglethorpe Avenue, there were no concrete leads—just a pool of blood and a vague description of a black man in his early 20s, last seen running toward Yamacraw Village.

Twenty-five officers were assigned to the case, and 30 witnesses were quickly rounded up. A homeless man handed over several empty .38 caliber casings—the same caliber of weapon used in a shooting earlier that night at a pool party in Cloverdale, only a few blocks from Troy Davis’ residence; the same caliber weapon that Officer MacPhail was never able to remove from his holster before being shot fatally through the left side, a spot unprotected by his bulletproof vest.

Later that morning, Sylvester “Red” Coles turned up at the police station with his attorney. He had been part of the argument that precipitated MacPhail’s shooting and wanted to tell the police his story. Across town, Troy Davis woke up and began to check items off his list of errands for the day: According to his sister, Martina, he would then head over to her house for a dinner party before catching a ride to Atlanta with her and her husband to look for work.”

The officer, a young husband and father of a one year old girl, and a son who was only a few weeks old, had lost his own father at thirteen. He became the child who consoled his mother, made her smile and helped her get back on her feet. He was respected and loved by all who knew him. His senseless murder angered the police officers to such an extent that they had “Shoot to kill” orders as pictures of Troy, now rechristened the cop killer, and already condemned to being guilty even before he had been questioned flashed across the airwaves.

Troy who had been excited by job prospects in Atlanta was told by his sister that there was a manhunt on for him. She says a perplexed Troy Davis decided to come home and turn himself in, because he said he had nothing to hide. “All our lives our friends had been police officers,” says Martina, “ We had never seen any thing that would have made us think that there would be any problems. It was a friend who was a Police Officer who Troy asked to be his arresting officer because they were telling us they had a “ Shoot to Kill” order out on him so his friend went with him. To this day, they have not questioned Troy about what occurred that night when Troy went there. They just asked, “Where is your gun?” and Troy said he doesn’t have a gun. That was the only question they asked. They never asked about the crime. Troy had turned himself in but they made it seem like he had been captured.”

Patrick Rodgers says that comment was corroborated by Troy’s lawyer and adds, “Troy was not asked the questions until he was brought in court and that is totally inexcusable. There is a report in the Savannah Morning News, that the day they brought him in, all of the Police officers were standing outside smiling and high-fiving each other and giving thumbs up to the media and were really exuberant. They were celebrating the fact that he had been caught. There was no “Well, we are just bringing him in for questioning or that this is phase one of the investigation.” As far as they were concerned the case was closed.”

Martina says that while the shell shocked family was trying to understand the ramifications of what had happened, people they trusted let them down. “There were these two Black guys who came to us and said they were representatives of Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/Push Coalition. One of them was the Chaplain for the Police Department and they said they were here to help. Well it was my brother’s lawyers who told us that just because they were Black, was no reason to trust anyone because these two people went up and collected the reward for Troy turning himself in as if they had assisted in his “capture.”

Who Dunnit?

No murder weapon was found and there is no DNA or any other physical evidence linking Troy Davis to the murder or to an earlier shoot out that night which injured another young man Michael Cooper. Davis had been around with his friend D.D. Collins, and reportedly saw Coles intimidating Larry Young, and tried to reason with Coles, but left when Cole threatened him and asked him to leave. Davis’s conviction came because of the testimony of nine so called eye witnesses. Leading the eye witness Parade was Sylvester “Redd” Coles. Coles has been described by many who know him as a fearsome neighborhood thug . Other eye witnesses were either those who claimed to be present at the shooting or near the crime scene and those who claimed Troy had confessed to them that he had killed Mark MacPhail. What came to light soon after was the fact that Sylvester Coles supposedly had a similar .38 caliber gun, which had killed the police officer. Affidavits submitted much later from 3 people who did not testify at the Davis trial also claim that Coles, confessed to killing the officer after Davis was convicted.

Patrick Rodgers writes in his article that in a discussion with Davis’s current lawyer Jason Ewart, “At some point there was an ‘Oh No!’ moment, when the police discovered that the person who may have fingered Davis had a caliber gun that had killed Officer MacPhail the night of the shooting, [something] that was withheld from them [by Coles],” but that “At that point, it was too late: Davis was the suspect. To go back and investigate someone else would have been politically tough to do…and there was no investigating any other suspect. There was no [police] questioning; there was no searching for the murder weapon; there was no searching anyone else’s house. His picture was the only one they showed in a photographic line up.”

Martina says she is convinced that the Police knew Troy was innocent, “but they had already turned the wheels in motion. Our family was never allowed inside the courtroom during the trial. They were able to be there only on the day he had been convicted and the prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty.” She also believes Coles is the one the Police should be questioning. “I talked to some body who knows Coles and who calls me to tell me where he is and I was told that when he is drunk he brags about the murder and no body does anything about it, but the demons are eating into him. He was shot a couple of times and people were surprised when I prayed that he would live. But for me to prove my brother is innocent I need for him to live.”

And Injustice for All?

Two families are bound today by the thread of tragedy and disruption, of wanting closure.

There is the mother who lost her son to death, a wife who lost her best friend, and two children who have grown up fatherless. It was a telling statement says Rodgers when soon after Macphail’s funeral there was a fundraiser for his children and the woman in charge told people to give what they could now because down the road who will remember this murder and the Police officer who lost his life?

But no one reckoned with the woman from the second family, and her indomitable spirit who has made it her life’s crusade, for the past 19 years to save another mother-her own from losing her son. Martina left the Military to fight for her brother’s life and when no one else believed his innocence, she did. Her father died heartbroken 12 weeks after Troy was put on death row.

In an article written by Bill Rankin and Alan Judd for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, in September 2003, the witness recant is clearly detailed.

“Most of the witnesses who have recanted their testimony claim police detectives, intent on getting Davis, intimidated them into implicating him. Several said they testified falsely because they feared the consequences of contradicting their earlier statements to police. One said two lawyers advised her she could go to prison for perjury if she changed her story.

During Davis’ trial, detectives denied pressuring witnesses. Savannah police spokesman Bucky Burnsed declined recently to address the witnesses’ allegations.

One witness who identified Davis as MacPhail’s killer was Antione Williams. But last year Williams signed a sworn statement saying he had “no idea what the person who shot the officer looks like.”

In a recent interview, Williams said he did not want to testify at the trial but that authorities told him he must.

When the shooting started, Williams said, “I didn’t see the face. I saw the gun. I was too busy ducking, for my own safety.”

Another witness, Dorothy Ferrell, had picked out Davis’ photo as the killer.

“Well, I’m real sure, positive sure, that that is him and, you know, it’s not a mistaken identity,” Ferrell testified.

But in a Nov. 29, 2000, in an affidavit bearing her signature, Ferrell said: “I don’t know which of the guys did the shooting because I didn’t see that part. . . . When the police were talking to me, it was like they wanted me to say I saw the shooting and to sign a statement.

“I was still scared that if I didn’t cooperate with the detective, then he might find a way to have me locked up again,” Ferrell, who was on parole in 1989, said in the affidavit.

Ferrell, now serving six years in prison for forgery, credit card theft and shoplifting, recently declined to discuss the affidavit with a reporter, except to deny having talked with Davis’ lawyers.

But Carol Gray, a former lawyer for Davis, said she took the sworn statement from Ferrell. David Mack, an investigator for Davis’ lawyers, said he also was present when Ferrell signed it.

When Ferrell said she was pressured to implicate Davis, “I thought, ’Wow, that’s powerful information,’ ” said Gray, now a public defender in Massachusetts. “She was one of the most important witnesses against him.”

Of the three men who said Davis confessed to killing MacPhail, two said they testified under police pressure.

“When it came time for Troy’s trial, the police made it clear to me that I needed to stick to my original statement, that is, what they wanted me to say, “Jeffrey Sapp, one of these two men, said in an affidavit signed Feb. 9.

In a recent interview, Sapp said, “None of that [testimony] was true.”

The third man now says he testified falsely out of spite because Davis spit in his face during a jailhouse fight.

Davis’ lawyers have interviewed just one of the three other key eyewitnesses: Harriett Murray, who testified that she saw Davis blindside her boyfriend, striking him in the face with a pistol, then shoot MacPhail. Now her story is more ambiguous: In a statement last year to defense lawyers, she still said her boyfriend’s assailant had killed the officer, but she no longer named Davis.

One of the two remaining witnesses, Stephen Sanders, was at the Burger King with Air Force buddies but told police he wouldn’t recognize anyone at the scene except by their clothes. During the trial, though, he identified Davis as the killer.

“You don’t forget someone that stands over and shoots someone,” Sanders testified.”

There have been questions about the integrity of the eye witnesses. Were they lying then or are they lying now in the recanted testimony? Either way, as Brenda Forrest, one of the jurors said in an interview, they are liars. Forrest however, was troubled enough to sign a sworn statement that said, “I have some serious doubts about the justness of Mr. Davis’ death sentence. I find it very troubling that the jury’s sentence was based upon incomplete and unreliable evidence. If I had been aware of this newly gathered evidence and had the benefit of it at trial, I would not have sentenced Mr. Davis to death.” Three other jurors did the same.

Martina and Rodgers say that there is no reason for these eye witnesses to come forward now. They are not related to each other, they don’t cross paths, and they don’t work together. Why would they stick their necks out now and deal with all the hassles that go with it? And that’s where it gets touchy, says Rodgers.

“The prosecution that wanted us to believe that 20 years ago these witnesses were infallible and absolutely correct then, regardless of whether police coercion played a role in it, now those same witnesses are not to be trusted because time and empathy may have changed whatever they feel about the case now.”

Patrick Rodgers was stunned by the fact that when Chatham County D.A. Spencer Lawton Jr. addressed the issue of Police coercion, instead of denying it, he indirectly admitted to it but then said something strange. Rodgers pulled out the quote and it says, “We’ve heard phrases like ‘I felt coerced,’ and ‘I told them what they wanted to hear,’ referring to police. Is there any reason to assume they didn’t feel subjected to exactly that kind of pressure from defense counsel when signing these affidavits?”

Rodgers adds, ‘It really blew me away that Lawton Jr. would not only acknowledge the fact that police coercion was a factor in the initial testimony but he would justify it by saying oh well they were probably coerced by the defense too, so that balances it out and we should still kill him(Troy). I think there are some very serious questions that can be raised about the conduct of the prosecutors during his tenure.”

Rodgers points to one of the most famous cases – the murder trial of Jim Williams that was the basis of the book “ Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” later made into a film by Clint Eastwood. That case was thrown out because of prosecutorial misconduct. Since 1977, five Georgians have been exonerated from death row and two were from Savannah. In 1978 there was a man named Earl Charles who was falsely accused of the murder of two furniture store owners and put on death row despite the fact that several months prior to the murder Charles had moved to Florida and his employer came and testified at the trial that he was at work that day and brought his time card as evidence. Police conduct led one of the detectives to falsify testimony. He also coerced the lone eye witness to identify Charles though she couldn’t identify him the several times she was shown his picture. He also traded an early release for a convicted felon, an acquaintance of Charles in return for testifying against him. Charles spent some years on death row and finally won a lawsuit in millions and a release from Chatham county.

In 1980 there was another case where a man , Gary Nelson was convicted of the rape and murder of a six year old and in that case the Savannah Crime Lab came and testified that hairs found at the crime scene matched Mr. Nelson’s even though they had never actually analyzed those piece of evidence. Nelson ended up spending 11 years on death row and was later unable to win any kind of restitution because it was called a “ harmless error” on the behalf of the prosecution.

“I think Murphy Davis from the Open Door Community(that rehabilitates exonerated death row inmates) phrased it best when she said, “ If you have two cases where Savannians were put on death row falsely and nearly executed, then when a third case comes around you know its worth looking into.”

For most of us Savannah is a beautiful tourist spot but for those who have taken a closer look at Savannah, the city has a darker, poor and more sinister underbelly. Rodgers knows that first hand. “While Savannah is a small city population wise, it really functions like a small town. There is a network of people who have been around for a long time. It’s a city that is very much fuelled by reputation. If you go to the website of the Savannah Morning news and do an article search on Troy Davis, you will see there is such animosity from readers, towards a person(Troy) who I assume is a complete stranger to them people. There are people who have said Troy Davis is no better than an animal and he deserves to die.”

Martina says the family has been ostracized and vilified repeatedly. She remembers a particular incident 8-10 years ago when some acquaintances who didn’t know that Troy was her brother and were training at the Police Academy told her that as part of the training to protect themselves they were told about the Troy Davis case with such venom, that one didn’t have to know the man to despise him.

Rodgers adds there were many other things that were made up in the press over the years to paint a not so nice picture of Troy Davis. In fact when Rodgers began his investigation of the case a few months ago, his main source of information was the Savannah Morning News and reading all the reports he began to seriously doubt that Troy Davis was innocent as he claimed. “I had not spoken to Martina until then, nor had I read the Amnesty International report. I realized that the paper had been there right off the bat in 1989. Even before there was any substantial evidence, even before Troy had been arrested, they had been running his picture with the headlines – Cop Killer Wanted.”

In fact the only positive article that Rodgers found in the archives was buried in the middle of the paper while Troy Davis’s manhunt, so called capture and subsequent trial hogged front page news. “The tone of the article was almost one of shock, when the story ran the day the sentence was given. It was a surprise to her that the Davis family was not this ignorant, foul mouthed gang of hoodlums. They were in fact very polite, very well spoken about the case and so an interesting contrast to what had been usually published. But I doubt too many people read it since it was buried so deep.”

Caught in Knots

By now most people would think that there was enough in the case for it to be granted a retrial, but Troy Davis’s life was now to be caught in legal knots that has many wondering about an urgent need for reforming Georgia’s judicial system.

In August 1991 after a jury convicted and sentenced Davis to death, his case was passed on to the Georgia Resource Center, an organization that handles the legal cases of death row inmates, but then began yet another cycle of bad luck. The center lost a big chunk of its funding, going from 1 million to 300,000 dollars and the attorneys were whittled down from eight to two, for handling cases of about 80 death row inmates going by the level of priority. Still from 1996 to 2005, says Rodgers, Davis’s defense team and the center collected the recanted testimony and looked for other evidence that Troy was not the murderer.

However the federal Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that was signed by Bill Clinton became a major obstacle. The attorneys for the state said that Davis’ new evidence was not provided during the time frame allowed under the 1996 law. A federal judge in Savannah agreed.

Rankin and Judd wrote in their piece that, “Georgia is the only state that does not guarantee death row inmates a lawyer for a crucial phase of their appeals. … Other states either appoint and pay defense lawyers or employ full-time lawyers to represent inmates.”

Rodgers says the attorney who handled the Davis case in 1989 has refused to comment because the case is still pending, and while the case wasn’t deliberately mishandled, it’s evident that due to financial constraints among other things, everything that was needed was not done. “ I think there was so much public pressure that the lawyer was worried about his reputation being affected. This lack of diligence combined with the anti terrorism and death penalty act, and the GRC budget cuts were truly an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the inability to investigate his case until after the expiration of the statute of limitations on new evidence. I think that has been the major contributing factor that in combination with the Georgia Law cited by the Georgia Supreme Court which is Timberlake vs. the State of Georgia, that set the standards for the use of recantation in appeal cases…so any recantation has to be accompanied by evidence that proves any previous evidence to be physically impossible. So in the case of Troy Davis, if a video was to certainly appear that no body knew existed, that would make all previous testimonies incorrect, then it would work but there is no such physical evidence to show Troy did it and none to show that he didn’t.” In fact when the Georgia Supreme Court rejected the motion by 4-3 vote in March 2008, Chief Justice Sears was troubled enough to say
“[…] I believe that this case illustrates that this Court’s approach in extraordinary motions for new trials based on new evidence is overly rigid and fails to allow an adequate inquiry into the fundamental question, which is whether or not an innocent person might have been convicted or even, as in this case, might be put to death.”

The man in the eye of the storm

While emotions run high outside the Jackson facility in Georgia where Troy Davis awaits justice, and people are strongly divided about his innocence or lack of it, two teenagers who do not know each other are bound together by the case. And they are among the many people world wide involved in the Troy Davis story and the many questions it raises.

Sahil Khatod is 17, and from a very young age he has been taught by his parents to reach out to the less fortunate, to be socially responsible. He is a student activist and volunteers with Amnesty International. Ideologically he has always opposed the death penalty. Sahil got involved in Troy ’s case through his work at Amnesty beginning when he was in 10th grade and he has worked on it passionately since then.
“I’m a very shy person by nature and I don’t walk up to people I don’t know, but it has come to the point where I do and get them involved and engaged.”

While many people don’t want to meet Troy for the fear of getting too emotionally attached, Sahil says it was a no-brainer for him, since he already felt so strongly about it. “The case has become so much more meaningful to me now that I have met him.”

Martina says that when Sahil requested a meeting and asked if she could arrange it she told him what she tells most people. “ I’m not going to tell you what Troy is like but I’m going to feel bad for you when you leave the visitation room. He was probably perplexed why I said that but the reason I did so was because once you get to meet Troy, and get to physically connect, to touch him, you will know the kind of peace he has around him, and who he really is and then you will be deeply moved.”

Sahil gets emotional when he starts to speak of that meeting. “I was allowed just to take a couple of dollars to buy Troy a sandwich, because he has to miss a meal for a special visitation like this. He had a huge smile on his face even before he saw me when he walked out to meet me. I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know the man. Do I talk to him about the case or do I stay quiet and let him talk? People had given me all kinds of conflicting advice. But Troy was so warm and talked about everything, that night of the murder and what had happened. He talked about how he has tried to forgive the man who implicated him, and found God. With that came peace. He told me even when he was within hours of being executed last July, he tried to keep his sense of humor, his faith in the justice system. He joked with the guards and people around him thought he was losing it because he was about to die. I cannot believe how someone’s faith can stay so strong.”

Patrick Rodgers says his experience while interviewing Davis was similar. “It was bizarre. I almost expected something more resentful, some vitriol, but he was incredibly calm about the whole thing. He has come as close as one can to some one accepting being a victim of circumstances.

I asked him about stuff revolving around the case and he doesn’t hold any kind of animosity towards anyone. He didn’t raise his voice, he spoke a lot about family support, his faith and how he prays every day that this will be set right but until then he is unable to have any sort of expectations. He hoped that regardless of what happened in the case, it would improve things, and if not him hopefully it will help someone else in the future. Troy said he still doesn’t understand how all this happened. He talked about how when he was up in Atlanta when the actual manhunt for him was going on, he came back to Savannah because he thought he would just clear his name, because he believed in the justice system and was sure that things would work themselves out.”

Antone Davis Correia is 13 and has known Troy Davis since he was in his mother’s womb. He has seen what incarceration and racism means first hand, and yet like his mother Martina, and his uncle Troy, he moves on with his life. A straight A student, Antone has been taught to hold his head high and live his life as best as he can. Antone also chose his uncle’s story for his first social science project. “He is,” says Martina, “richer by knowing my brother. We see a lot of people who take this negatively and might say-oh what a sad life-your mother has cancer, your uncle is in jail but my son always puts a positive spin on things.”

Antone did a study on how the Troy Anthony Davis case has affected Georgia. At the school stage, the judges who come from outside were overheard whispering-“Oh that’s about the Cop Killer case,” by some of the teachers and Antone was given a C grade by the judges. Smarting under the unfairness, perhaps says Martina, the school chose to give Antone an Honorable mention and still sent the project to the county. Not only did Antone’s project go on to win the first prize at both the county and state level he was declared the overall first place winner and given a standing ovation. “Even the Professors at the Clayton State University that hosted the state competition came up to Antone and told him they had been watching the case and this was an exceptional project,” says Martina with pride.

Martina has battled breast cancer(she is still on chemotherapy), quit her job in the military very early on and doesn’t mind even living from month to month because she believes so strongly in Troy’s innocence.

“My brother reminds me of David in the lion’s den. It’s like he is surrounded by all this evil, sadness and despair, but he still sees God, he still sees hope, he still has faith and never wavers. Recently the guards around him have been getting on the internet and have come to know the case and some had to be transferred because of their sympathy towards Troy. They are not supposed to have a personal opinion on him.” Martina recalls that at the last Clemency hearing theprison authorities spoke in such glowing terms about Troy that the members of the Parole Board looked at the lawyer reading out the statement as if they couldn’t believe this was about a death row inmate that had supposedly killed a police officer. The warden, according to Martina said if he could choose a model prisoner he would want every prison to have someone like Troy.

Troy continues to hold on to his faith, according to his sister. “He says if I don’t trust God to move this mountain, then why am I praying? For us the fact that so many people are being enlightened about the issues involving the death penalty in Georgia, the fact that people are talking about the Troy Davis case all over the world, makes me believe that there is always a purpose, a lesson in every experience in life.”

The Race Card – is it always black and white?

In a case that has so many shades of gray, many allege that racism was a key factor in the way the media and the cops handled the Troy Davis case in the late 80s and 90s. The Savannah Morning News has been constantly cited as the media mafia that headlined every thing that would serve the purpose of condemning a man even before his trial was held. Before the advent of the internet, where knowledge is just the click of a mouse away the print piranhas did as they pleased, say those who are sympathetic to the case.

Was race and media bias a factor then in the Troy Davis conviction?

“There are certainly a disproportionate number of African Americans in jail in Chatham county, if you look at the total population,” says Patrick Rodgers. And I think the same can be said about the death row population not just for Georgia but the United States and I think the Southern states make up the majority of the executions done.”

On the other hand many people believe that it may not be racism as much as the level of poverty, educational issues that persist through out the community, along with a cultural imbalance and a lack on economic opportunity, that leads a larger number of African Americans in particular and other minority groups in general to situations that lead to criminal behavior.

Patrick also gives the example of Jack Alderman in contrast, a white man scheduled to die on the 16th of September who has been denied a clemency appeal. But had Davis been white would the outcome have been different?

“I don’t know if it would have been different, but I don’t think that people would have been so quick to indict him or the media would have handled the case in nearly the same way as they did. I think they would have been as eager to bring the guy in but they might not have had “Shoot to kill” orders.. On a certain level I do think race plays an issue and there was an element in the way Troy’s case was handled both by the media and the police force. But while there is racism in Savannah in a number of public institutions, at times it has much more to do with a culture that has developed in the South for any number of reasons.”

“When Troy turned himself and everything was flipped around him, the lawyers said to me, we know your brother is innocent but this is the state of Georgia and the state of GA is racist and they are going to execute your brother and make a legal precedence out of the case to protect other people,” says Martina, who says racism is a big issue in Savannah.

“The lawyers added that now if the police and prosecutors turn around it would have made them look bad.” I was shocked and decided then that now there was nothing I would not do to prove my brother’s innocence. To this day I talk at various organizations, schools, rallies about racism, human rights and the death penalty. What I find telling is the fact that when I talk about these issues, as a woman of color, people say-Oh black people always talk about racism. When I make one of my white friends give the exact same speech then its revered as the gospel. So I know that it’s not always about the message-many times its also about the messenger delivering that message.

Today when I go out to speak I talk not just about Troy’s case but the whole system in Georgia. They send more black males to prison in Chatham county per capita than Atlanta. I live in a city where racism is expected and everyone says Oh it is never going to change, its always going to be like that. I talk about the whole judicial system.”

Martina also recalls a young reporter who wanted to do something then and couldn’t because she said she was new. Now an anchor she is still helpless because the man in charge is a racist. “He talks against the Mexicans, the Arabs, everyone and while he does not take Troy’s name openly he says he will do everything in his power to make sure anyone given a death sentence is executed within 3 months.” The internet has changed the equation as did some very positive articles in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Today one of the positive developments is that people of all races and ethnicities have come forward to support Martina’s crusade.

Guilty unless Proven Innocent?

An angry blog writer, whose sympathies lay with the slain officer pointed out that when you do a google search on both Officer Mark MacPhail and Troy Davis, the discrepancy is great( over 400,000 sites for Davis compared to a little over 6,000 for Macphail). He was very angry at the execution stay last July and felt Davis should have been put to death long ago, because a relative of MacPhail told him Troy did it. When another commenter pointed out that he should be looking at the evidence and not an emotional comment that would be obviously biased the blog became a cyber boxing ring with many heated comments all over for and against Troy Davis. This blog is a minisicule sample of how divided everyone is about whether Troy Davis is guilty or not.

Most people who have followed the case, or researched it say they don’t know for sure either way. The evidence, the way the case was handled, the recanting, and the legal jargon, makes it all very confusing and unclear. A larger number of reporters covering the case confess they really can’t say with the same conviction as Martina that Troy Davis is completely innocent, and that there may indeed be something more to it than meet the eyes. Rodgers says, “When I was looking initially at the case from the local angle, I was surprised that while the rest of the world seemed to believe that Troy is either innocent or that there exists enough doubt not to execute him, even if they don’t set him free, in Savannah 95 percent people think he is guilty, that he deserves to die and they are surprised that he is still alive.”

One thing however stands out very clearly for most people aware of the case. If Troy Davis is executed, the justice system would have failed.

“Regardless of whether he did it or not,” says Rodgers, ‘ there are so many inconsistencies in the prosecutor’s case, so many moments of doubt, so many cracks, both from witness recantations to the prosecutor’s narrative of the case itself that there is no way Troy Davis should be executed. Everyone gets very emotional because a police officer was killed. He was a young man with a young family and then it gets people going- is he (Troy) guilty? Is he not guilty? This is a horrible crime-oh he deserves to die. But the key issue is-Should he be executed because if he is, they can’t take it back. This is not an open and shut case. There is more than reasonable doubt and just for that reason Troy Davis should not be executed. We can then sit for the next 20 years and discuss the legalities but executing a man in a system that supposedly believes every one to be innocent until proven guilty this would be a shame. Yes he was proven guilty but not beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Martina thinks that the internet, the international interest and the intervention of Amnesty International has managed to make everyone take a second look at the case, or Troy would have been put to death long ago.

What Lies Ahead?

The execution date has again been set for September 23rd.

There is a clemency hearing tomorrow, Sept 12 2008. Martina Correia, her family and Troy’s lawyers will stand before the Parole Board at 9 a.m. and plead for clemency for Troy. MacPhail’s family and the prosecutors, will presumably plead to the contrary in a separate hearing, even though there has been no official comment from the MacPhail family. No matter what the outcome we will never know how the Parole Board decided whatever they decide to do, because that is never made public.

The brother and sister tried to keep their spirits up when the news of the execution was given to them. “ I went over and met Troy who had another friend visiting him,” says Martina. “We talked about my sister’s baby who turned 8 months and he wished her. We talked about basketball and an old dance we used to do and Troy got up and did the old dance and everyone started dancing and we all started laughing. He has a Santa Claus laugh and laughs with his heart, and we talked about positive stuff. What has kept him sane is our love for each other. We visited him every week from the time he has been there till I became pregnant with my son, but we never missed a single holiday or special event.”

Most reporters who have covered criminal cases for many years say there could be two outcomes.

The Parole Board had said when they stayed the execution that they would not execute Troy Davis if there was even a shadow of a doubt and will hopefully honor that statement. Most experts feel that the Board may then commute Troy’s sentence to life but they wont let him go free.

The other scenario will be where, the Board will be resentful, of the hype and pressure from Amnesty International and others. They will say, “Don’t you trust us to make the correct decision on our own?’ And of course then they can say the Georgia Supreme court heard the case and didn’t see substantial reason to provide a hearing or a retrial, the US Supreme Court denied his certiorari petition ( final appeal). So even if it makes them terrible people in the eyes of the world, they are, from a legal stand point totally justified in carrying out the death sentence.

It is something that frustrates Sahil Khatod. “When you talk to people on the State legislature, their justification for the death penalty is that they are hundred percent sure that the system will fix itself. They believe in the jury system and the appeal system. But when the appeal system is so broken how can we have faith in the death penalty? Troy Davis’s case is a poster child of what is wrong with the death penalty especially in the Southern states.”

A two-year investigation resulted in an exhaustive report done by the Atlanta Constitution and Journal. It showed that receiving the death penalty in Georgia, is “ as predictable as a lightning strike…unfairly shaped by racial and geographic bias and fails to reserve the death penalty for “ the worst of the worst”.

On 11th Sept hundreds gathered at the Georgia State Capitol, with members of Amnesty International, NAACP and others, for a rally seeking clemency for Troy Davis. Martina who underwent chemotherapy just 2 days ago is there for her brother and the years she has spent fighting for his life have not dimmed her indomitable spirit. “We are doing fine. We’ve been battling these people for almost 20 years, so we don’t get shaken easily. We know that the State really wants to hide this case and bury it so they get Troy out of the way before the elections. But every time they come against us we get stronger. We have a strong faith in God, we are a very close knit family, so we don’t wallow in self pity or all the sadness because if we do that we won’t have the time and the energy to fight. We were really disappointed with the Georgia Supreme Court who said they will hear the case and then ruled against us and half of the Justices were not even there to hear the arguments. It’s like they don’t care about some body’s life to be present, when you have to make a life and death decision.”

The D.A.’s office has been involved from the beginning in this case since Troy was convicted, and every one is trying to pass the buck. They have deliberately kept the families apart because they don’t want us to have any kind of a relationship with the MacPhail family. His (Mark MacPhail’s ) mother has said she feels sorry for my mother and that she would probably do the same thing that we have, but my question to her is, why would you want my mother to feel what we are feeling if my brother is innocent, especially when someone else(Sylvester Coles) is bragging about having done it and people have come forward. I don’t know why you would say- No matter what, kill Troy Davis.

They ask me if I’m afraid and I say No because they know I’m telling the truth. They don’t attack me but when I wanted to take out a march for Troy in Savannah it took almost 40 days and a lawyer from ACLU to get a permit to make it happen. I’m glad they have given us this clemency hearing. The case has received international attention and so many people are watching. How can these people live with their conscience? They go to their place of worship, they spend time with their kids and family but if happened to their kids they would want something different to happen.

But I know that I never stand alone, because I stand on my faith and with God. No matter what they do I won’t back up.”

Update: 9/13/2008 – Troy Davis denied clemency

On 12 September the Georgia Parole Board denied Troy clemency. In an exclusive interview Martina Correia said that the rally held to show support for Troy Davis on 9/11/2008 was a huge success. Sahil Khatod says that this was in spite of the fact that this rally had been planned a day after the US Supreme court was to look at the case, on the 29th of this month. The fact that the execution date was suddenly announced to be the 23rd seemed like it was done to upset the preparations, but every one chipped in and hundreds of people showed up for the rally in spite of only a few days available to get it organized. Sahil who went to several events to raise awareness and distribute thousands of flyers for the event that was to have thousands of supporters, says this was still an extraordinary turnout.

Martina adds “We had representatives from many organizations present-from Amnesty International, NAACP, ACLU and others, and we had people honking their cars asking that we put posters on their windows. We ran out of T-shirts for Troy.” Troy spoke about his innocence on Martina’s cell phone, during the rally.

The next morning when Martina, her lawyers and witnesses appeared before the Parole Board, she says the only thing she found a bit strange was the fact that the new Chair person Gale Buckner was being nice unlike the last time when she came across as hostile. Witness after witness came forward to talk about police and prosecutor coercion and misconduct. At one point when one of the witnesses said how she was asked not to change her story then by the Prosecutors for fear of perjury, Martina says Gale Buckner got very agitated and said to the witness, angrily, ” Are you telling me you lied then?” The witness said, “Yes I was lying and I told the prosecutors it wasn’t Troy.”

Martina adds, “The Board had enough information the first time to know that this case was full of inconsistencies and this time around compounded with all that they heard, it was more than enough not just to commute his sentence but to pardon Troy. Buckner also told me that the Board will not be making any decision for the next 3-4 days because they have so much information to go through. It was shocking for me then to be called in barely 30 minutes after the Prosecutors had come out after presenting their case, to find out that they had a typed statement ready and had called a press conference to say that they were denying clemency to Troy.

My lawyers told me it was obviously a premeditated decision and the statement had already been typed in advance. So they just went through this fake motion of having a clemency hearing. I think they cut some back door deal with the Prosecutors before hand and since the Board is not accountable for its decisions they can do whatever they want. This is the election year and they want this case out of the way, but they don’t realize what they have done. They have lit the fire under themselves. All the organizations are in conference this weekend and we are also requesting all the people to please write letters/emails and faxes to the US Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s office and the President, to ask for this case to be reopened and re-tried. We want to shame Georgia and the Parole Board into realizing this kind of ingrained racism cannot go on. Even if they thought Troy was guilty before, they have enough evidence to know this is not a case beyond a reasonable doubt to execute him. It is unprecedented, ever in criminal history that 7 out of the 9 witnesses would recant their testimony, and they still think that is not enough to give him clemency? We want to bring to light how the Parole Board works. They have to explain how they arrived at this decision. I want the grass roots community and the national press to give their support. We are not giving up. So far the justice system has failed us and we cannot let this go unnoticed.”

Martina went to see Troy today and said he was reading his Bible and said he will pray harder and not let anything deter him from his faith in God. “ He does not want to be a martyr, he does not want to die for something he didn’t do, but he knows there is a possibility they will go ahead and he said-what can they do? They can only take my physical body away from me – nothing beyond that. He was more concerned about us, and the people all over the world who have supported him.”

9/21/2008 – Update

There were 2 rallies held on the 18th-one in Washington D.C. to protest against the impending execution of Troy Davis, the other in Atlanta. Hundreds of people showed up for the rally in Atlanta where Martina was present. A prayer vigil was also held at the famous Ebenezar Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached. “We were led by the Church’s Pastor Rev. Raphael Warnock,” says Martina Correia. Rev. Warnock said that it was only right that the rally ended there because Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the death penalty. Martina was deeply touched by the love and the representations by all major organizations supporting Troy. ” It was heart warming to see how many people showed up at such a short notice at the rally, to stand up for justice, and for Troy. It was a very moving experience. We sang and we marched ad we wore ” I’m Troy Davis” shirts. People were saying-“Justice matters, innocence matters. I’m Troy Davis. You could be Troy Davis.” Every one was urging the Parole Board to reconsider their decision. It is unjust to execute someone when there is so much doubt, when people who were proven guilty had their sentences commuted to life. It is a shameful thing in Georgia. It speaks all the more about the bias and racism in this case.”

Martina could not move from the church after the ceremony was over because so many people wanted to embrace her and tell her they were praying for Troy. “These old ladies who were young girls when the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. preached came up to me and said they were praying for my brother. Others came to tell me, ” You are the kind of sister everyone wants to have.” I said to them I’m the kind of sister everyone has. Its just that many people don’t get a chance to prove that love and support for their loved ones under these kind of circumstances. Otherwise no one would walk away from a loved one in need of help and support. But I want to caution others-when we don’t stand up and support each other, it means we are standing back, and indirectly supporting injustice, and a flawed system, and it can bite us in the face any time, any where.”

Martina’s mother has faced so much – a younger daughter paralyzed for years from the neck down, a son on death row for 19 years, loss of a husband within 12 weeks of the son’s conviction, and an older daughter battling breast cancer. That night she was in the audience when Martina spoke. ” I see my mother. She has endured so much, and she is still standing, still prayerful, still full of faith and praying to God. I get my strength from her unwavering faith.”

Since the clemency denial, Rep John Lewis issued a statement the very same evening of his deep disappointment at this development.

“I was profoundly saddened to hear that the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles did not extend clemency to Troy Anthony Davis. There are so many unanswered questions in this case, so many witnesses who have recanted their testimony, so much that would lead any reasonable person to doubt the case against this man.

“I do not know Troy Anthony Davis. I cannot say whether he is guilty or innocent. What I can say is that as a society we must ask ourselves whether any human being should be put to death based on the weakened evidence available in this case.

“In Georgia, the punishment for some crimes is death. But what price does a society pay for the death of an innocent man? Officer Mark Allen McPhail gave his life for the cause of justice. I question whether even he would see this execution in the face of so much doubt as a fitting punishment for his homicide.

“Anytime we destroy another human being, a part of our humanity dies a little. It is my hope and my prayer that the state of Georgia is not making a mistake, the final mistake, the ultimate mistake. Once someone is put to death, there is no chance to undo any damage that was done. This whole story is a tragedy. My prayers are with the family of Officer McPhail and also with Troy Anthony Davis, his legal team, and family. This is a case that should disturb the conscience of us all.”

On the 19th former President Jimmy Carter sent a letter joining thousands across the world asking for clemency for Troy Davis. According to the press release posted on the Carter Center’s website President Carter said, “This case illustrates the deep flaws in the application of the death penalty in this country…Executing Troy Davis without a real examination of potentially exonerating evidence risks taking the life of an innocent man and would be a grave miscarriage of justice. The citizens of Georgia should demand the highest standards of proof when our legal system condemns on our behalf a man or woman to die.”

Bob Barr wrote on the 17th that while he is a strong believer in the death penalty as an appropriate and just punishment, but he believed that the proper level of fairness and accuracy required for the ultimate punishment has not been met in Davis’ case.

On the 20th Rev Al Sharpton, the well known civil rights activist from New York, prayed with Troy Davis at the request of the Davis family. He found Troy calm and handling everything in a positive manner. Rev Sharpton too appealed for clemency for Troy Davis but according to a report in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Atlanta’s leading newspaper, “Scheree Lipscomb, a spokeswoman for the Pardons and Parole Board, said Saturday night there would be no last-minute clemency. “The board members have considered clemency on two occasions,” Lipscomb said. “They stand firm in the decision that they have made.”

Mark McPhail’s mother, Anneliese MacPhail, 74, who lives in Columbus Georgia, says the AJC, in its report is “disgusted” by the global support for clemency in the Troy Davis case. “It’s tearing me apart to see my son’s name dragged through the mud because of all of this.”

Anneliese is convinced of Troy Davis’s guilt and in the interview she said she will not attend the execution but her three children will. “I hope this is over Tuesday and I can have some peace.”

Martina does not hold any grudges against the MacPhail family for their anger and hatred for her brother and neither does Troy Davis. “I just ask for prayer, understanding and guidance for them. I know they have faced a tremendous loss and I also know that people have spent a lot of time telling them a lot of lies, and not telling them the whole truth.They have had all these years to build hatred. However, killing Troy would compound that tragedy. You cannot wish someone dead when there is so much doubt about his guilt. His mother talks of the pain and hurt of losing a son. Why would she intentionally want to wish that on my mother? The real murderer will still be walking free, and no one is doing anything about it. I know Coles wants my brother dead too, because he knows if he is allowed to live, ultimately they will come after him(Coles).I hope and pray he will come forward and tell the truth. But the fact remains that everyone knows the truth but no one wants to admit they made such a terrible mistake.”

Martina says the biggest surprise was the fact that she received a phone call from the wife of a death row inmate at the prison in San Quentin. ” She put me on the phone to talk to him and several other death row inmates were there. They all mentioned their names and said they heard me on the radio, and are familiar with Troy’s case and are praying for him. Imagine, these are people on death row and even they believe in Troy’s innocence and are praying.”

To Die before you Die

Perhaps what is heart breaking is what a few days before execution. Martina says that the death row inmate is moved to the death cell and isolated. All his possessions are taken away from him. He is given a small radio, and a small black and white TV which catches a couple of channels. The inmate does have access to a phone to call family and friends. He is given a new uniform and a pair of flip flops. He is not allowed to wear even regular shoes. “They want to break your spirit before you die. And now they seem to have put Troy next to an expensive phone line. A phone call that cost us a little over 5 dollars cost a 100 dollars when he called to talk to my mother a couple of days ago. We are protesting that amount. The Press wants to talk to him but they have said that death row inmates are not to be seen or heard before their execution. They want to keep people away from him, because they know if the press was allowed to talk to Troy, there will be such an uproar that they won’t be able to kill him. Its ironical that this isolation is done to ensure that the inmate doesn’t get hurt, or hurts himself. They want him to be healthy enough to be killed.”

Troy is holding up as well as he can under the circumstances, says Martina. “He is praying and wants people to continue to pray for him because he believes it gives him strength. “But its hard, for him when a family member breaks down, just when he is trying to tell them he is doing fine. He is worried about my 14 year old son, and those who have supported him and believed in his innocence. Those are the moments that are tough for him.”

Troy’s lawyers are looking at all options at this time. The Parole Board can still re open this case and re review their decision. But if that doesn’t happen, then the only hope is if the appeal for an emergency stay of execution is accepted by the State Supreme Court. The appeal was filed on the 15th but so far there has been no answer from the GA Supreme Court. It is really important for everyone to continue writing to the Board condemning this decision. Please support this effort. Contact your local political and social organizations and leaders. Injustice is color blind and the more apathy we show, the more we make ourselves vulnerable to something similar happening to us, if we happened to be in the wrong place-at the wrong time.

Update 9/26/08

The Davis family has gone through quite a roller coaster on the 22nd and 23rd of September. On the 22nd the Georgia Supreme Court handed down its verdict 6-1 that it is no longer in its jurisdiction to stop Troy’s execution and that the US Supreme Court was the final deciding factor. That denial served as a go ahead signal for Georgia to proceed with Troy’s execution on 23rd September at 7 p.m. by lethal injection.

Martina Correia says that Troy remained calm, though he was a little irritated by all the hoopla that began around him. The place was swarming with cops, and suddenly the rules started changing for him. They removed four of the witnesses on his list that he wanted to see if the sentence was carried out leaving only his lawyer on the list and replacing the rest with names of reporters from the media. It is almost tragic in how a man about to be executed is isolated in the last week of his death, a time when he should have unlimited access to his loved ones. On top of that to remove the names of loved ones from the list is even more unacceptable. In this case Troy would have looked at the faces of mostly strangers from the media, before finally passing on. Troy was also told he could only make two 15 minutes calls, when all inmates on death watch are allowed unlimited phone calls to friends and family. No one would give him any reason.

Still Troy’s main concern was the family, friends and many across the world who have supported him and prayed for him, says Martina. “He was still trying to remain calm and continue his prayers, fasting and hopeful that God will intervene. The lawyers had told us that getting a stay from the US Supreme Court was going to be an uphill battle but they would do their best and the rest we would have to leave to God.”

Things got harder and harder for the family as the day of execution grew near. The youngsters in the family were taking it especially hard, but Troy, says Martina talked to the younger ones, asking them to stay positive, stay in school and out of trouble and work hard. If he was to die, he wanted their success to become his legacy because all through the years he has tried to teach young kids that education is the best gift, any one cam have. “We didn’t talk about the impending execution,” says Martina. “Instead we talked about his upcoming birthday on 9th October, and the future. It was only 30 minutes before 3 p.m. when the visitation time ends that things got tough. Those 30 minutes seemed the shortest 30 minutes on the planet.”

In those minutes Troy talked to the family about continuing the fight to expose the flaws in the Georgia judicial system, and continue to fight for the other innocent people in jails. Martina says his last prayer was “to God to not allow the State of Georgia to execute him, because he was an innocent man, but if God’s will was otherwise then we have to accept it. Troy reminded us of the poem Footprints and said God was carrying him and he has led a life where he wanted to inspire children to stay out of trouble and also expose the flawed judicial system in the state.

Troy has also been deeply moved by people who have prayed for him especially those who told him that they haven’t been to a church, a temple, a mosque or a synagogue for years but have done so now to pray for him.” The prayer for the MacPhail family and asking God to show him mercy was the last thing Troy said before Martina and her family were rushed out of there.”

Then the tears came as the crowd outside swelled. Many protesters and supporters of Troy Davis had come to protest his execution. Police and media swarmed the place that had very tight security that day, As Martina’s family stood out in the heat with the dogs and the security personnel, elsewhere within the prison, some of Mark MacPhail’s family members sat in an air conditioned room waiting to watch a man they have hated for almost 20 years, to die.

On the contrary the Davis family has asked everyone who prays for Troy to pray for the MacPhail family, and they always keep them in their prayers. “We understand their grief, their anger and their hatred. It has always been my wish that the two families meet and get to know each other,” says Martina, “ that the Parole Board would have had an open meeting where they can hear the witnesses, hear from my brother, review the evidence and some how open their hearts and minds in an unbiased way, and then form their opinion. They need to ask themselves why so many prominent people around the world would put their names on a document to support Troy. Why would they jeopardize their own reputations, if they had even an iota of a doubt, that he was guilty?”

Ninety minutes before Troy Davis was to be executed, as he sat there recording his last statement, the news broke that in an emergency meeting, the US Supreme Court, had placed a stay on his execution. One family (Davis) broke down, tears of joy in their eyes, and prayers on their lips, another (MacPhail) couldn’t feel anything but anger and bitterness. Both have been waiting for justice for close to 2 decades. The MacPhail family is totally convinced Troy is guilty, the Davis family believes beyond any doubt he is not.

On Monday, September 29th , Troy Davis’s fate lies in the hands of 9 representatives of the US Supreme Court-the exceptionally brilliant and accomplished Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and the equally outstanding Associate Justices, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito. They will decide whether to hear Davis’ appeal of a ruling issued by the Georgia Supreme Court in March, where the State Supreme Court rejected Davis’ bid for a new trial or a court hearing to present new evidence in a close vote of 4-3.

The Justices can decide not to hear the appeal and in that case Troy Davis will be executed shortly thereafter. If the Court decides to hear the appeal, then until the Court gives its final decision, Troy Davis will live. His family prays that Troy receives justice. They believe the US Supreme Court will be fair. Troy says it isn’t over till God decides it is, and he is at peace with himself. His supporters believe God has intervened again to spare his life, because the chances of the justices of the US Supreme Court that is not in session, to come together in an emergency meeting and stop the execution, were very slim.

Martina continues to fight for her own health, with chemotherapy for her cancer, and for Troy’s life as all around the world people pray for Troy, and watch for events to unfold.

10/9/2008 – Update: Troy Davis Turns 40 Today

Troy Davis turns 40 today – and he still waits for some reason to celebrate this day.

As a kid he loved G.I. Joe and got many of those figurines for his birthday, recalls sister Martina Correia. Birthdays were fun events in the family backyard with cake, ice cream and hot dogs and some nice gifts. Martina was not around when Troy turned 16, a special birthday for any teenager but sent him gifts while training in the Military. Little would she know that his 21st birthday would be behind bars and on death row.

A maximum security prison is hardly the perfect haven to celebrate a special occasion. That too of inmates whose spirit is being broken through isolation, bad nutrition, and a non productive life style.
The only exceptions are July 4th when they get Hamburgers and Hot dogs to celebrated Independence day, or when a convict is executed. Then the guards get a special barbecue meal. When an inmate receives a lot of cards they may just acknowledge the birthday briefly as the guards read the mail. Once a month they rent a DVD and the inmates can watch a movie. There is a TV which is controlled by the guards and the inmates can watch that.

They were allowed unlimited books-not any more. Now its seven, the number of visitors too has been cut down drastically and there are not many activities except for a short outing in an enclosed area with a basketball hoop where they can shoot baskets on concrete floors.

“Many inmates have diabetes and hypertension because of the food they get to eat,” says Martina. “There are many inmates with HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis, and don’t get medical treatment. The inmates have to pay 5 dollars each time they visit the doctor and if there is no family to finance them, then they remain untreated unless they are dying.”

Last year a death row inmate died of cancer and a major news paper reported it as-death row inmate escapes execution-dies of cancer.”

The winter months are harsh. The inmates sleep with 4-5 thin military style blankets, the heating is inadequate. “Last year to conserve energy, they cut off the hot water daily from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and so many people fell sick taking cold baths. If someone sends you money, they charge you a dollar per month as tax in he prison. The inmate has to buy everything from the prison store, so that the prison can make some money.”

Martina says her family has never been far away from Troy. They used to send Troy 3-4 boxes of things that he could use, but now its been cut to one 15 pound box once a year. Martina and her family has visited Troy for every birthday, and every holiday they could. They have sent individual cards from each family member and friend. Cards that said-even though he is across the miles, he is with them. “We have a present under the Christmas tree for Troy each year. The pile is waiting for him, when he comes back. My mother still wakes up at 6 a.m. every Sunday to cook an elaborate Sunday dinner as if she is still cooking for a houseful of growing kids. Troy used to love her cooking and ate everything!”

Martina helped organize an event last weekend on a 2 day notice for leading members of the NAACP. There is great support from the state and national NAACP. Music and wonderful speeches, shared stories of atrocities on young black men in the late 80s by those who experienced it, walking to the crime scene where it all happened, made it a memorable event.”

The US Supreme Court asked for more time to look at the information before it hears arguments about the case on Friday and expects to give its decision on Tuesday, the 14th of October.
There are millions across the world praying for Troy Davis and that he finally finds justice. Troy himself is praying along with his family, for justice not just for himself but also for the MacPhail family.

As we wait and the world watches, all eyes are on the US Supreme Court. We hope they do the right thing and give Troy Davis the justice he deserves.

Update 10/24/08

The state of Georgia began preparations to execute Davis for the 3rd time on the 27th, while he hung on to his faith-exhausted but hopeful, that God would step in. Letters from High School kids including one from Davis’s nephew Antone Correia were sent to the Pope, to the Governor, to the GA Parole Board and the White House asking for help. Meanwhile Troy Davis’s lawyers in a last ditch effort, asked asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay his execution in order to give them time to file a new round of appeals. “Mr. Davis’ execution in light of new evidence concerning his innocence is constitutionally intolerable,” the motion said, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. “Society recoils at state execution of an innocent person.”

On 24th October the Federal court of Appeals, stayed Troy Davis’s execution for the 3rd time. “Upon our thorough review of the record, we conclude that Davis has met the burden for a stay of execution,” the court said in an order issued by Judges Joel Dubina, Rosemary Barkett and Stanley Marcus.

But what was interesting were the pre-conditions that followed that ruling. Eminent Attorney Scott Greenfield wrote this scathing commentary in his blog-“What is so surprising about this stay is that it comes on the heels of the United States Supreme Court’s rejection of Davis’ petition for cert, raising the obvious question of what the Circuit saw that the Supremes did not. While there is no available opinion as yet, the newspaper (AJC) reports that:

Davis must clear two difficult legal hurdles to win a new round of appeals.

First, he must show that his lawyers could not have previously found the new evidence supporting his innocence no matter how diligently they looked for it. And he must show that the new testimony, viewed in light of all the evidence, is enough to prove “by clear and convincing evidence that…no reasonable fact finder would have found [him] guilty.”

The 11th Circuit added a twist. It asked the parties to address whether Davis can still be executed if he can establish innocence under the second standard but cannot satisfy his burden under the first, due-diligence question.

The last paragraph is the one that is most shocking, and most offensive, about existing federal law. One would think that proof of innocence, with nothing more, would be an awfully good reason not to execute someone. The very notion of putting an innocent person to death is reprehensible. The very notion of putting someone who may well be innocent, even if not quite proven, is reprehensible. But not in America.

The second prong, diligence, is the bureaucratic kicker. It is our legal system’s elevation of process over substance.

There is an interest in finality of legal determinations. Cases can’t go on forever, with nothing ever being finally resolved. As a general rule, I take no issue with this. But like all legal truisms, there are circumstances that trump the need for finality. Innocence is one such circumstance.

I would be inclined to ask who amongst us is in favor of executing an innocent person, but I already know the answer: much of our federal judiciary. The idea that a belated claim of innocence should be ignored because it didn’t fall within arbitrary time frames, or that a defendant should die because of any number of structural defense issues that delayed learning about, or presenting, new evidence, is just offensive. While appellate decisions clean up the mess of practical litigation reality, to stake a person’s life on the fiction of expected diligence is just plain wrong.

But this latest twist, the 11th Circuit’s post-cert-denial grant of a stay, suggests that there are judges on the court who are indeed concerned about the possibility of putting an innocent man to death. Bravo.

But it begs one very serious question: What if the Circuit concludes that there is evidence to prove that Troy Davis did not murder Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, but that his attorney failed to act with sufficient diligence. Are they prepared to put an innocent man to death for a procedural flaw? Is America prepared for this? Stay tuned.”

Protest after protest has come in with thousands of letters being mailed, faxes and emails added to that flood and rallies being held world wide to protest against the decision to execute Troy Davis.
Prosecuting District Attorney Spencer Lawton finally broke his silence after the US Supreme Court to say his piece. The reaction to that piece which has been ripped to shreds by those who have studied and worked on the case for years and even those who have started following it recently has been lukewarm. The support for Davis has increased rapidly since the past few months.

In all the hoopla, the MacPhail family continues to go through their own emotional rollercoaster. Their son still has not found justice. But will they want the wrong man hung? Why are they not paying attention to the fact that there may be something amiss here with so many respected figures asking for clemency for Davis-among them those who are pro-death penalty.

The world’s eyes are on Georgia. Will it execute a man whose conviction is clouded by more than reasonable doubt as new eye witnesses come forward to point a finger at another man, or will it for once, do the right thing and look at new evidence?

Update 9/21/2011

TROY ANTHONY DAVIS
(October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011)

Today the state of Georgia participated in yet another murder of an innocent man. A man who remained dignified, gracious and full of grace till the end. A man who I grew to know very closely, who would at times confide things in me that he couldn’t tell his sisters or mother so they would not worry more than they already did about his well being. A man who inspired millions behind bars when many of us who are free waste our time, and our lives doing nothing – a man who said he was dying to live while others lived and died – a man who sought to mentor kids to teach them not to make wrong choices – because being at the wrong place, wrong time, can make you another Troy Davis.

I remember my first conversation with him – his incredible faith, intelligence and dignity. I met him soon after for the first time in 2008. All I can say is over the years I learnt many lessons in resilience and honesty. Troy showed me by example not to take life seriously, to laugh even in the midst of being around death, disease and incarceration. I was amazed at his knowledge, his discipline, his optimism and his faith in God. Even on Tuesday evening when he called he said (among other things) – “no matter what happens to me, don’t ever lose faith in God because God is for real”.

I saw no anger, just frustration at the legal system and more concern for my well being than his own. But that is how he always was. And that is how everyone in his family is. When his mother died suddenly, Martina called me to check on me to make sure I was okay. When the Parole Board denied him clemency on Tuesday, Troy called to check on me and my family to make sure we weren’t upset. He ended up giving us strength instead of the other way around. And at the end we were laughing.

I stood there outside the GDCP tonight, and saw the outpouring of love from everywhere across state and country lines. Troy Davis in his 42 years achieved more than many of us expect to achieve in a lifetime. He received more love than the men and women who wanted him dead would in a lifetime.

As I still struggle to accept the flaws in a system where man can play God and be the most cruel of all species, I also find peace remembering a man called Troy Davis on death row. I do not know the truth about what happened on that sad sad night in Savannah Georgia- but this do I know: we all deserve a second chance.

Amidst all the tears and the memories, I can say I am honored to have known a man who showed me that divinity can be found – of all the places – on death row. A man whose dignity, pride and faith till the end when he blessed even those who participated in his death, makes me so proud of the man he was. A man of courage who stood strong and proud in the face of so much and did not give up his integrity till the end.

I wish I could say the same for a lot of men in our legal system and even our President who chose to wash his hands of the whole business even when other Presidents didn’t. I have been a supporter of President Obama all along and still very much admire him. However, my issue with him has been his indecisiveness and his consistent desire to please everybody while no one else is budging to accommodate him. Although Troy’s case was a state matter, the President with his legal background and the fact that his mentor (a Harvard Professor who had a major event at Harvard for Troy Davis) obviously knew about it. He can make a decisive statement himself and say he firmly believes this and that and not shoot the gun from the shoulder of his Press Secretary.

Troy, I know you are in a better place and I know you have impacted future generations deeply. I know that they will fight injustice and will always remember that they stand on your broad shoulders.

– Kavita Chhibber.