Ga. Won't Stay Execution Despite Witness Reversals

Carter, clergy, NAACP have asked for life sentence for Troy Davis
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2008 9:18 AM CDT
Ga. Won't Stay Execution Despite Witness Reversals
Martina Correia, Troy Davis' sister, speaks next to Genevieve Garrigos, left, president of Amnesty International France, during a protest to denounce the death penalty in the US on July 2 in Paris.   (AFP/Getty Images)

A man sentenced to die tonight in Georgia is looking to the US Supreme Court after the state’s parole board and top court rejected clemency yesterday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Troy Anthony Davis was convicted in 1991 for murdering a police officer, but seven prosecution witnesses have since recanted testimony, leading to calls for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison.

Death-penalty opponents called for prison workers to take a sick day today in support of Davis, whose case has drawn the attention of Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI, among others. The NAACP called the penalty “a modern-day lynching,” while a pastor said the execution of an innocent man would “leave the blood of Troy Davis on all of our hands.” (More Troy Davis stories.)

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