Convicted cop killer denied clemency

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Friday refused to grant clemency to convicted cop killer Troy Anthony Davis even though seven of the nine witnesses against him have since recanted.

For the second time in a year, the five-member board heard from both sides of the debate — Davis’ family, friends and attorneys Friday morning and prosecutors and the slain police officer’s family and prosecutors in the afternoon.

Davis is to be executed at 7 p.m. Sept. 23.

A Chatham County jury convicted and condemned Davis in 1991 for murdering Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail two years earlier. The evidence against Davis came from eye witness accounts, including a man some witnesses now say was the killer. MacPhail, a 27-year-old husband and father of two, was responding wails of a man being pistol-whipped in a Savannah Burger King parking lot late at night when he was shot by a man who then stood over the fallen officer and fired again and again.

Since he was put on Death Row, seven of the nine key witnesses against him have recanted. One of the two who did not change their story, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, was at the scene and later told police Davis was the shooter. New witnesses now say Coles confessed to them that he killed MacPhail, and others say Coles had a gun immediately after the shooting —- contrary to what Coles testified at trial.