The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, whom the high court had given the extraordinary opportunity to prove he did not kill an off-duty Savannah police officer in 1989.
The state can now seek a new execution date for Davis, who had previously been scheduled to be put to death on three prior occasions. If a date is set, however, questions remain whether Davis' execution can be carried out.
Earlier this month, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized Georgia's entire stockpile of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used for lethal injection. Lawyers for a Georgia death-row inmate had questioned whether the state circumvented federal law when it purchased the scarce drug.
Lauren Kane, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, said Monday there are no legal impediments to another execution warrant being sought. "But if there are no drugs, there can't be an execution," she added.
The Department of Corrections is waiting for the DEA's review to be completed, spokeswoman Kristen Stancil said.
Davis' sister, Martina Correia, said there is too much doubt in the case to allow her brother to be executed. "Just because we've had another negative decision, it doesn't mean we're giving up hope," she said. "We're still going to be fighting."
Speaking for the relatives of the victim, Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, Dawn Dalton said the family is pleased with the high court's decision.
"We're hoping and praying this is the end because we deserve closure and he deserves justice," Dalton said of the slain officer, who she said had been her best friend since elementary school. "We're cautiously optimistic."
Davis' innocence claims have attracted international support; former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI are among those who have asked that he not be put to death.
A number of prosecution witnesses who testified at trial that they saw Davis shoot and kill MacPhail in 1989 have backed off that testimony. Davis' attorneys contend that Sylvester "Redd" Coles, another man who was at the scene and who was the first to implicate Davis to the police, was the actual killer.
MacPhail, a 27-year-old father of two, was gunned down before he could draw his weapon. The off-duty officer ran to the scene to help a homeless man who was being pistol-whipped.
In August 2009, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the U.S. Supreme Court took Davis' last-ditch petition filed directly to the court's docket, instead of accepting his appeal of a lower court's decision. In an order, the court instructed a judge to determine whether Davis' new claims clearly establish his innocence.
U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. in Savannah, after hearing two days of testimony, emphatically rejected Davis' innocence claims. At the hearing, he criticized Davis' lawyers for not calling Coles to the witness stand and confronting him.
"While Mr. Davis' new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors," Moore wrote in a 172-page order. "... Mr. Davis is not innocent."
The Supreme Court's decision on Monday let Moore's August 2010 ruling stand.
Laura Moye of Amnesty International said the state Board of Pardons and Paroles should commute Davis' death sentence. The new evidence "leaves an ominous cloud hanging over an irreversible sentence such as the death penalty," she said.
In 2008, however, the parole board denied a prior clemency request from Davis.
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