"RIP Troy Davis" #TroyDavis Georgia convict faces execution as U.S. Supreme Court considers case

Jackson, Georgia (CNN) -- The fate of condemned Georgia convict Troy Davis was in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday as hundreds waited past nightfall outside the prison where he was to be put to death.
Davis had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. ET for the 1989 killing of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah police officer. But the proceeding was delayed as the justices pondered a plea filed by his attorneys less than an hour earlier, after last-ditch appeals failed throughout the day.
Several hundred people, most of them opposing the proceeding, gathered outside the state prison in Jackson where Davis, 42, awaited his fate. Others held a vigil in a nearby church.
By 9:30 p.m., more than 100 officers, many in riot gear, stood guard over the now-quiet gathering. At least three people who crossed the street had been taken away in handcuffs.
Davis's supporters argued that his conviction was based on the testimony of numerous witnesses who had recanted, including a jailhouse informer who claimed Davis had confessed.
"There's a genuine feeling among people here and across the nation that we're about to do the unthinkable," said Isaac Newton Farris Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
But prosecutors have stood by the conviction, and every appeal -- including the last-minute petitions filed Wednesday -- has failed.
Davis's supporters cheered and hugged each other when news of the delay reached them. But it did not sit well with McPhail's mother, who remained at home.
"This delay again is very upsetting and I think really unfair to us, because we want this situation closed," the slain officer's mother, Anneliese MacPhail, told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." She said the execution would bring her "relief and maybe some peace."
Davis' attorneys started the day by asking a judge in Jackson, where Georgia's death row is located, to halt the proceeding, citing a new analysis they say shows ballistics testimony at his trial was "inaccurate and misleading." They also note that a federal judge found in 2010 that a jailhouse informer's testimony that Davis confessed to killing Officer Mark MacPhail was "patently false" and that prosecutors knew a key eyewitness account was wrong.
"Clearly, the fact that Mr. Davis's death sentence rests in part on 'patently false' and egregiously inaccurate and misleading testimony, evidence and argument renders the death sentence fundamentally unfair, unreliable and therefore violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments," his attorneys argued in a motion filed Wednesday morning.
That appeal was denied Wednesday afternoon. The state Supreme Court followed suit a short time later, leading his attorneys to turn to the U.S. Supreme Court in the final hour before the execution.
Davis has been scheduled to die three times before, most recently in October 2008. That time, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution two hours before it was scheduled to take place.
This time, Davis declined to request the special last meal offered inmates prior to execution and was offered a standard meal tray: Grilled cheeseburgers, oven-browned potatoes, baked beans, coleslaw, cookies and a grape drink.
"He has continued to insist this is not his last meal," said the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church.
His case has drawn international attention, with Pope Benedict XVI, South African anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter saying the execution should be called off. Amnesty International and the NAACP have led efforts to exonerate Davis, and U.N. human rights officials joined those calls Wednesday.
"Not only do we urgently appeal to the government of the United States and the state of Georgia to find a way to stop the scheduled execution, but we believe that serious consideration should be given to commuting the sentence," read a joint statement from the U.N. special rapporteurs on arbitrary executions, judicial independence and torture.
But the man who originally prosecuted the case, Spencer Lawton, said those who do not believe there is physical evidence in the case are wrong.
"There are two Troy Davis cases," Lawton said Tuesday. "There is the legal case and the public relations case. We have consistently won in court, and consistently lost in the public relations battle."
Since Davis' 1991 trial, seven of the nine witnesses against him have recanted or contradicted their testimony. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered a district court in Savannah to review his claims of innocence in 2009, but District Judge William Moore ruled the following year that the evidence did "not require the reversal of the jury's judgment."
The parole board rejected a plea for clemency on Tuesday. In Georgia, only the board -- not the governor -- has the right to grant clemency.
And a request that Davis be allowed to sit for a polygraph by his attorneys was also rejected by the state Department of Corrections.
Davis' supporters argue he was the victim of a rush to judgment by police seeking justice for the death of one of their own, as well as widespread racial prejudice in the criminal justice system. Warnock noted to CNN that several other inmates have been proven innocent in recent years.
"Unfortunately, tomorrow morning, it will be too late for an exoneration for Troy Davis," Warnock said.
Supporters argue that the original witnesses who testified against Davis were fearful of police and spoke under duress. Other witnesses also have since come forward with accounts that call Davis' conviction into question, according to his supporters.
According to prosecutors, Davis was at a pool party in Savannah when he shot a man, Michael Cooper, wounding him in the face. He then went to a nearby convenience store, where he pistol-whipped a homeless man, Larry Young, who'd just bought a beer, according to accounts of the case.
Prosecutors said MacPhail rushed to the scene to help, but wound up being shot three times by Davis. They said Davis shot the officer once in the face as he stood over him.
A jury convicted Davis on two counts of aggravated assault and one count each of possessing a firearm during a crime, obstructing a law enforcement officer and murder. The murder charge led to the death sentence.
Anneliese MacPhail told CNN earlier this week that she didn't begrudge protesters their opinions. But she said they don't understand the facts of the case.
"To them the point is the death penalty. Ninety-nine percent have absolutely no idea who Troy Davis is or who Mark MacPhail was," she said. "They're just following their belief."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Davis execution delayed as Supreme Court weighs plea

State holds off while waiting for decision; vigils held from Georgia to Paris

Below:

1. • x
     • 

     Jump to video Troy Davis denied clemency

   •  

Erik S. Lesser  /  AFP - Getty Images

Police detain a man Wednesday as demonstrators call for Georgia officials to halt the scheduled execution of convicted cop killer Troy Davis at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia.

NBC News and news services

updated 2 minutes ago

ATLANTA — Convicted killer Troy Davis filed an eleventh-hour plea Wednesday evening asking the Supreme Court to stop Georgia authorities from executing him for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer.

The 7 p.m. execution time passed, and state officials waited for a response from the Supreme Court, which had no deadline for a decision.
"We are in a delay, waiting for a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court," Peggy Chapman of the Georgia Department of Corrections told NBC News. "There has not been a reprieve issued."
The state was under no obligation to wait but did so, NBC News reported.
Hundreds of Davis supporters gathered outside the Jackson prison and lined a nearby highway. Crowds cheered and sang "We Shall Overcome" as news of the lethal-injection delay spread. Police in full riot gear were on hand to deal with any possible disturbance if the execution goes ahead.
The last-ditch effort with the U.S. Supreme Court came just 45 minutes before the execution was scheduled and after state officials refused to grant Davis a reprieve in the face of calls for clemency from former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and others.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Georgia's Supreme Court had rejected a last appeal by Davis’ lawyers. Earlier, a Butts County Superior Court judge also declined to stop the execution.

Advertise | AdChoices

Davis was convicted in the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.
In their U.S. Supreme Court filing, Davis' attorneys said "substantial constitutional errors" were made when the lower courts denied his claims that "newly available evidence reveals that false, misleading and materially inaccurate information was presented at his capital trial in 1989, rendering the convictions and death sentence fundamentally unreliable," NBC News reported.
The lawyers said they've been struggling to get these claims heard in the lower courts "after having a grueling clemency process."
There was no guarantee justices would act in time to stop the execution, but they likely knew the filing was coming, NBC News said.

File

Mark MacPhail

Davis and his supporters have maintained his innocence. Prosecutors have stood by the case.
Davis' supporters held vigils outside Georgia's death row and as far away as London and Paris. They also tried increasingly frenzied measures, urging prison workers to stay home and even posting a judge's phone number online, hoping people will press him to put a stop to the lethal injection.
"We're trying everything we can do, everything under the law," said Chester Dunham, a civil rights activist and talk show host protesting in Savannah, where MacPhail, 27, was killed.
Outside the Jackson prison that houses Georgia's death row, about 100 people, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, gathered Wednesday afternoon for a prayer rally. As they shouted, "Free Troy Davis!" a man in a red SUV drove by and shouted, "Kill him! Kill him!"

1. Only on msnbc.com
   1. He swapped bombs for babies, death for diapers
   2. NASA: Doomed satellite won't fall on N. America
   3. Two versions of justice in Troy Davis case
   4. Parents: Anti-gay bullies drove our son to suicide
   5. Couple sues after he gets her infected kidney
   6. Firms divide and conquer in consumer cases
   7. On base, 'don't ask, don't tell' demise is cause for celebration

Several dozen people gathered outside the White House to protest the execution. They held signs condemning it as a "lynching" and chanted "Too much doubt" and "What do we want? Justice!"
About 150 people gathered in support of Davis in Paris, many of them carrying signs emblazoned with his face. "Everyone who looks a little bit at the case knows that there is too much doubt to execute him," Nicolas Krameyer of Amnesty International said at the protest.
Davis' execution has been stopped three times since 2007, but on Wednesday the 42-year-old appeared to be out of legal options.

Troy Anthony Davis

1. 
   

   
   

   

   Ho  /  AFP - Getty Images
   

   Troy Davis

   Age: 42
   Hometown: Savannah, Ga.
   Sentenced to die for: Aug. 19, 1989, murder of off-duty Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark MacPhail.
   Additional info: Maintains his innocence. List of supporters include former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Desmond Tutu.

As his last hours ticked away, an upbeat and prayerful Davis turned down an offer for a special last meal as he met with friends, family and supporters. His attorney Stephen Marsh said Davis would have spent part of that time taking a polygraph test if pardons officials had taken his offer seriously.

Advertise | AdChoices

"He doesn't want to spend three hours away from his family on what could be the last day of his life if it won't make any difference," Marsh said.
Davis' supporters also include a former FBI director, the NAACP, and several conservative figures. Amnesty International says nearly 1 million people have signed a petition on his behalf. The U.S. Supreme Court even gave him an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence in a lower court last year, though the high court itself did not hear the merits of the case.
He was convicted in 1991 of killing MacPhail, who was working as a security guard at the time. MacPhail rushed to the aid of a homeless man who prosecutors said Davis was bashing with a handgun after asking him for a beer. Prosecutors said Davis had a smirk on his face as he shot the officer to death in a Burger King parking lot.
theGrio: Death penalty debate resurrected for 2012 campaign No gun was ever found, but prosecutors say shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting for which Davis was convicted.
Witnesses placed Davis at the crime scene and identified him as the shooter, but several of them have recanted their accounts and some jurors have said they've changed their minds about his guilt. Others have claimed a man who was with Davis that night has told people he actually shot the officer.

Sphere: Related Content