Victim’s mother: Davis ‘is guilty’

By Russell Grantham

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

People gathered online and on the pavement in last-minute protests and vigils Sunday and Monday, leading up to a hearing today that could decide whether Troy Anthony Davis is executed Wednesday.

Enlarge photo

John Spink, jspink@ajc.com Daniel Hanley (left) throws his fist up in the air as Ken Neal (right) and Roshan Pandian (far-right) chant slogans Monday. Members of the Free Troy Davis Committee and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty joined in an overnight vigil in front of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

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The state Board of Pardons and Paroles in Atlanta convened its meeting Monday morning to decide whether the death sentence is carried out against the Savannah man, who was convicted of the 1989 murder of an off-duty policeman, Mark Allen MacPhail.

Davis’ case generated worldwide attention after most witnesses recanted or backed away from trial testimony that implicated Davis in the shooting. Some people later pointed to another man at the murder scene as the killer.

Sunday, some groups held an overnight vigil in front of the pardon board’s office building and other activists protested online on Twitter and other sites.

“Look at the evidence. There were seven out of nine witnesses who went back on their testimony,” said Durrell Seay, a Georgia State University student who joined the small around-the-clock vigil Sunday ahead of the pardons board meeting. He held a sign that read, “Justice, Free Troy Davis.”

But the victim’s mother, Anneliese MacPhail, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that death penalty opponents have taken up Davis’ case to further their cause without regard for the facts. “He is guilty,” she said.

A federal judge who, at the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court, last year reviewed the witnesses’ changed testimony said they were not credible, and that Davis had not established his innocence.

But one organizer of the overnight vigil said it’s “almost incredible” that the judge would rely on the witnesses’ earlier testimony to let Davis’ conviction stand but then say they are not credible now.

“We should not execute [Davis] as the result of evidence that is in doubt,” said Mark Clements, administrator of the Chicago-based Campaign to End the Death Penalty.