New Troy Davis hearing this week

Troy Anthony Davis returns this week to Savannah, where he was convicted and sentenced to death almost 2 decades ago for killing an off-duty police officer during a late-night melee in a Burger King parking lot.

For more than a decade, Davis has sought to present his claims of innocence, including the recantations of 7 key prosecution witnesses, in court. On Wednesday, in U.S. District Court in Savannah, thanks to an extraordinary ruling last year by the nation's highest court, he will finally get that chance.

Davis' innocence claims have attracted international attention, including calls from former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI that he be spared from execution. Last August, for the 1st time in nearly half a century, and the 1st time ever in a death-penalty case, the U.S. Supreme Court took a case filed directly to its docket. It accepted Davis' last-ditch plea because Davis had exhausted all his appeals.

The high court ordered a federal judge to convene a hearing and take evidence to determine whether Davis' new claims "clearly establish" his innocence -- a high legal threshold to overcome.

Justice John Paul Stevens noted that no state or federal court had heard the new testimony and assessed its reliability. "The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing," wrote Stevens, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented, calling the hearing a "fool's errand" because Davis' innocence claim is "a sure loser."

Davis lost 2 prior challenges to his conviction and death sentence by razor-thin margins. In 2008, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected Davis' bid by a 4-3 vote and, a year later, the federal appeals court in Atlanta denied his appeal by a 2-1 vote.

In recent years, Davis' scheduled execution has been halted 3 times shortly before it was to be carried out -- on one occasion just 2 hours before he was to be put to death by lethal injection.

U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr., who will hear the case, is not expected to make an immediate ruling. He has instructed parties that he wants them to file legal briefs after the hearing is over. He also told the lawyers that because he has already read the trial record and the legal pleadings in the case, he expects them to come to his courtroom and "immediately" enter into the presentation of evidence.

"Certainly, Mr. Davis and his attorneys have a very difficult burden ahead of them," said Howard Bashman, a Philadelphia attorney who operates a Web site devoted entirely to appellate litigation. "They have to show far more than there are serious doubts over the validity of the conviction. They have to show that the new evidence clearly establishes Mr. Davis' innocence."

Davis sits on death row for the Aug. 19, 1989, killing of Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. MacPhail was gunned down after he ran to the fast-food restaurant parking lot after hearing pleas from a homeless man who was being pistol-whipped. MacPhail, 27, was shot multiple times before he was able to unholster his weapon.

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, JUne 21, 2010

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