Parole board swamped with Troy Davis petitions

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Thursday was given petitions with more than 663,000 names of people asking that Troy Anthony Davis be spared from being executed next Wednesday, saying there is too much doubt he killed a Savannah police officer in 1989.

AJC File Troy Anthony Davis was sentenced to death for the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

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Davis' supporters, led by Amnesty International and the Georgia chapter of the NAACP, appeared at the board's offices and handed over 15 boxes filled with petitions, Amnesty Laura Moye said. The board, which will hear Davis' clemency petition Monday, also was given letters signed by more than 1,500 legal professionals, more than 3,300 religious leaders, 26 death-row exonerees and 110 relatives of murder victims asking for Davis' execution to be halted.

"There remains far too much doubt in this case," Moye said.

Davis sits on death row for the 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, a 27-year-old with a wife and two children. MacPhail was shot three times before he could draw his handgun. State prosecutors say they are confident Davis killed MacPhail and say his execution should be carried out.

Since the 1991 trial, a number of key prosecution witnesses have either recanted or backed off testimony that implicated Davis as the killer. Davis' attempts to get a hearing on his new claims were thwarted for years until the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in August 2009 and, in an almost-unprecedented ruling, ordered a federal judge in Savannah to convene a hearing and hear the new evidence.

U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. heard two days of testimony and ultimately ruled Davis could not clearly establish his innocence. Davis appealed but the Supreme Court turned him down earlier this year.

Davis is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson on Wednesday at 7 p.m. He recently declined to request a special last meal, the Department of Corrections said. Instead, he will be offered the prison's meal tray, consisting of grilled cheeseburgers, oven-browned potatoes, baked beans, coleslaw, cookies and a grape drink.