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Troy Davis execution delayed

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: October 24, 2008 - An 11th hour stay of execution for Troy Davis wasissued by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. A three-judge panel said that "upon our thorough review of the record, we conclude that Davis has met the burden for a provisional stay of execution."

The action came a little more than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court had appeared to open the way for Davis' execution by refusing to hear his appeal of innocence. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has suggested in past decisions that it would be unconstitutional to execute an innocent person, but it never had explicitly held that executing an innocent person would violate the 8th Amendment's bar on cruel and unusual punishment. Over the past decade or two, the Supreme Court has erected legal barriers making it hard for a death row inmate to prove a case of actual innocence.

Seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony that Davis was the man who killed policeman Mark Allan MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. One of those who has not recanted may have a self-interest.  He is the person whom five other witnesses have accused of the murder.

There had been some speculation that the U.S. Supreme Court had decided not to hear the Davis appeal because it was based on recanted evidence, which is less persuasive than the DNA evidence that has cleared others on death row.

Davis, in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, had cited the Missouri case of Joseph Amrine as an example of a capital conviction that was set aside after three eyewitnesses had recanted their testimony.  Amrine had been accused of murdering a fellow prison inmate.

Davis' case has attracted international attention.  The French presidency of the European Union appealed for Davis' death sentence to be commuted.  Joining in the criticism have been former President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Pope Benedict XV