DEL.ICIO.USDavis being prepared for execution
Protests take place near Capitol, at medical center, at prison
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Jackson — With less than four hours left before his scheduled execution, convicted cop killer Troy Anthony Davis said his good-byes to about 25 visitors Tuesday afternoon and began the final preparations for his lethal injection scheduled for 7 p.m.
Prison officials said Davis did not request a special meal, planning to have what the rest of the inmate population had for dinner, but he declined that as well. Instead, Davis was given a final physical exam and allowed to shower. He will be offered a sedative at 6 p.m.
Jessica McGowan/jmcgowan@ajc.com
About 17 people, including Paige Howell of Atlanta(foreground), stage a ‘die-in’ near the state Capitol on Tuesday, in protest of the impending execution of Troy Davis.
The relatives of Savannah Officer Mark Allen MacPhail are at the prison but they will wait for news that the execution is complete outside the prison near Jackson with the contingent of state and local law enforcement officers.
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton and two buses with death penalty protesters are expected, so additional officers were called in to provide security at the demonstration areas beside Ga. 36, about a mile up the drive that leads to the Georgia Diagnostics and Classification Prison.
The Davis execution has attracted national and international attention since seven of the nine key witnesses who testified Davis shot MacPhail several times in a Savannah Burger King parking lot in 1989 have recanted.
Neither the state Board of Pardons and Paroles nor the courts have agreed to stop Georgia’s 21st lethal injection.
Earlier Tuesday, about a dozen people picketed Rainbow Medical Associates’ offices in Jonesboro. Rainbow Medical provides two physicians and two registered nurses for each execution, Department of Corrections spokesman Paul Czachowski said. Rainbow’s nurses prepare the intravenous lines for the lethal injection and the doctors are there only if there is an emergency and to pronounce death.
And later in the day, opponents of Davis’ execution staged a “Die-In” at the office building across the street from the state Capitol that houses Parole Board offices. Sunset vigils were scheduled at the Capitol in Atlanta and in Athens, Americus, Jackson, Augusta, Clarkesville, Dawson, Marietta and Savannah.
