Court Rebuffs Georgian on Death Row

[tpsbmam]

Source: New York Times

A narrowly divided Georgia Supreme Court declined Monday to order a new trial for a man sentenced to death in the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, despite recantations by seven of nine witnesses who originally testified against him.

The convicted man, Troy A. Davis, 39, had collected affidavits from all seven of the recanting witnesses, some of whom said their trial testimony had been coerced by investigators who were under pressure to convict someone in that fatal shooting of a fellow officer.

But the court, in a 4-to-3 decision written by Justice Harold Melton, held that sworn testimony at the trial was more important than the later recantations, noting that some of the witnesses had said only that they no longer felt able to identify the gunman.

“We simply cannot disregard the jury’s verdict in this case,” the court said.

The dissent, written by Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, called the court “overly rigid” in its consideration of new evidence in support of a retrial and said it had failed to allow “an adequate inquiry into the fundamental question, which is whether or not an innocent person might have been convicted or even, as in this case, might be put to death.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/us/18trial.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

[acmavm]

1. If not for false testimony the jury very possibly would have ruled

180 degrees opposite of what these assholes are trying to uphold.

This is bizarre.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Mere factual innocence

is not an adequate reason to set aside a decision properly arrived at.--Scalia.

[Solly Mack]

3. Yep...that's what he said

sick sick man

[acmavm]

4. Yeah, so he said. But like so many other times and subjects,

he's wrong.

That man is corruption in motion.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Uh...You don't think

I was quoting him with sober-sided approval, do you?

[acmavm]

6. Nope.