Sharpton seeks clemency for Troy Anthony Davis

New York civil rights activist Al Sharpton said condemned cop killer Troy Anthony Davis was “surprisingly upbeat” Saturday night after the two prayed together on Georgia’s death row.

“He was not overly optimistic or pessimistic,” said the Rev. Sharpton, who visited Davis on death row at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at the request of Davis’ family. “He was suprisingly upbeat. He seemed like he was depending on his faith to see him through.”

Sharpton has joined a growing chorus of prominent figures calling for Georgia to spare the life of the 39-year-old, who is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Tuesday night for the 1989 murder of Savannah police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

“If you have this kind of wide array of people who don’t agree on much, but who believe that clemency is needed in this case, that should impress upon [the Georgia State Pardons and Parole Board] to give him another opportunity to show that there is not reasonable doubt,” Sharpton said.

But 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.”

Both former President Jimmy Carter and Bob Barr, a Libertarian Party presidential candidate and former Georgia congressman, on Friday asked the board to grant Davis a stay of execution.

Barr wrote a letter to the parole board last week asking it to reconsider the Davis case because, he wrote, “the doubts about the Davis case have not been resolved, and fears that Georgia might execute an innocent man have not been allayed.”

Carter issued a statement Friday asking the parole board to reconsider the case, saying it “illustrates the deep flaws in the application of the death penalty in this country.”

Carter wrote that “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.”

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the NAACP said Saturday they are planning another rally at 11 a.m. Monday in front of the State Capitol to urge the parole board to reconsider or the state Supreme Court to stay the execution of Davis while his case is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Davis is convicted of killing MacPhail, on Aug. 19, 1989. Since Davis’ 1991 trial, several key witnesses have recanted their testimony. Witness testimony formed the core of the prosecution’s case because physical evidence was scant: no murder weapon, no fingerprints, no DNA.

The case has attracted worldwide attention, with calls to stop his execution from Pope Benedict XVI, Amnesty International and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu. Rallies have been held as far away as Paris.

Officer MacPhail’s mother, Anneliese MacPhail, 74, of Columbus, said Saturday she is “disgusted” by the outpouring of support for Davis. “It’s tearing me apart to see my son’s name dragged through the mud because of all of this.”

She said she had no doubt Davis is guilty. “I hope this is over Tuesday and I can have some peace,” she said.

She will not attend the scheduled execution, but “three of my children will be in Jackson,” she said.

GFADP also plans a vigil outside the Jackson jail, as well as a protest on the Capitol steps, both to begin at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Sharpton spent about 35 minutes with Davis on Saturday night, and said by phone that the death-row inmate reflected on how he became a murder suspect.

“He said he got in with the wrong crowd and thought one of the guys he was hanging with killed [MacPhail],” Sharpton said. “He said young people should be careful who they hang around.”