Only two hours before Troy Davis was to be executed in Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider Davis' appeal. Davis wants the Court to order a judge to hear from the witnesses who have recanted their original testimony against him and from others who say another man confessed to the crime.

A variety of influential people have spoken out on Davis' behalf included former President Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

In 1989, Davis was convicted of murder and sentenced to death based only on witness testimony. Seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted that testimony, stating that they experienced police coercion.

Davis' sister, Martina Correia, has been working tirelessly on behalf of her brother in order for the court to consider the new evidence indicating that Davis is innocent. The public outcry in this case continues to grow, demonstrating that when enough people are willing to speak and act, the powers that be are forced to listen.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider the appeal on Monday and if they choose to hear it, the stay will remain in effect. If the Court decides not to hear the appeal, the stay will be automatically lifted, and Georgia can move forward with the execution.

We will keep you posted on this case and will provide more actions for you to take if and when they are necessary.

I have included a statement released yesterday from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

STATEMENT FROM DIANN-RUST TIERNEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of NCADP,
REGARDING A STAY OF EXECUTION FOR TROY DAVIS

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty joins with pro death penalty law enforcement officials, abolitionist, civil and human rights organizations in calling for a halt in tonight’s scheduled execution of Troy Davis. There is just too much doubt about whether Georgia is executing the right man to proceed. There is no public consensus in this case, and that should be required before the government asserts its power to kill. To the contrary – the lack of public consensus and concern is reason enough to stop.

We are at a watershed moment in this case. If the execution proceeds, the State of Georgia, its Board of Pardons and Parole and the Georgia criminal justice system will be going beyond the point of return. They will have crossed an unfortunate threshold. No individual or institution that loves justice or fairness will ever be able to look at the individuals involved in this process in the same way.

We will have learned in a sad and tragic way that in the State of Georgia it really doesn’t matter whether you are guilty or innocent of committing a crime once the State is determined to execute a man or a woman. What passes for justice in the State of Georgia is mere window dressing.

If we did not know and understand it before, we know now that the criminal justice system in Georgia is broken. Whatever happens tonight, the struggle is not over. We are committed to helping the citizens of Georgia root out and throw out what is broken in hopes of building a criminal justice system that is worthy of its citizens.

Tuesday proved to be a very full day for the members of the Tennessee Death Penalty Study Committee. The meeting began at 10:00 a.m. with comments from Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Gary Wade and new Chief Justice Janice Holder. The Justices addressed several of the recommendations which the Committee is considering including bypassing the Criminal Court of Appeals (CCA) for capital cases and instead having all death penalty appeals go straight to the Tennessee Supreme Court, as well as the creation of an independent authority to oversee capital defense services in Tennessee.

Justice Wade stated that he and other Justices do not feel that eliminating the CCA level of appeals is a good idea as meaningful review should not be sacrificed for the sake of expediency. He likened the current structure, which includes review of death cases by the CCA, as the difference between dealing with a shotgun blast wound (more scattered) and a rifle wound (more precise).

Currently, the CCA reviews every appeal and identifies a few key issues upon which the TN Supreme Court can focus its attention. This selection process allows the TN Supreme Court to give more precise focus to only a few issues as opposed to addressing every issue. Though Rep. Dunn appreciated the comments, he still believes that eliminating one tier of the process (CCA) might be beneficial in the long term.

Concerning the independent authority, Justice Holder stated that the court did consider creating such an authority in 2004 but wanted more evidence that it worked in other states. Now that other states, such as North Carolina, have moved in that direction, the evidence does suggest that an authority could improve the process. She believes that the Court would support such a move by the legislature.

After lunch, the Committee heard from Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project working to uncover wrongful convictions, not only to free the innocent but to find the guilty. Scheck spoke for three hours concerning all the issues which need to be addressed by the Tennessee Committee, including DNA preservation, eyewitness identification procedures, and recording custodial interrogations about which he stated that "the only people who don't like for interrogations to be recorded are the guilty."

Scheck also fully endorsed the idea of creating an independent authority to oversee capital defense services in Tennessee and stated that of 187 death sentences given in Tennessee since reinstatement in 1977, 39 of the defense attorneys in those cases have been disciplined with 11 of them remaining on the list from which Tennessee judges still appoint attorneys to represent indigent defendants.

Other frightening facts shared by Scheck included:

• There have been 20 exonerations in the city of Dallas alone since DNA testing became available.


• Of those inmates exonerated by DNA, 78% were identified by false eyewitness testimony.


• Kirk Bloodsworth who was exonerated by DNA evidence was also identified by 5 separate witnesses demonstrating the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

Tom Lee shared some Tennessee polling data showing that though a majority of Tennesseans do support the death penalty, a majority also feel that the state has made errors and that innocent people may have been executed. Given that data, Charlie Strobel believes that this Committee must do a thorough study, not only to address the obvious systemic problems with the system, but to restore public trust.

We are grateful for the press coverage of this important meeting and hope that members of the Committee were paying attention. It was disappointing, however, that three of the legislative members of the Committee were not present for Scheck's testimony. I hope that all of these legislators and other Committee members who missed the meeting will read the transcripts of Scheck's testimony or watch the testimony online as it is so important that they hear the data and consider it as they move forward.

Read an article about the Committee meeting here.

I received this email recently sharing the words of Sister Helen Prejean to the Interfaith Gathering at the Democratic National Convention. Here are some excerpts:



Jesus said, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see, the ears that hear what you hear." O God, give us ears to hear and eyes to see. Oh, say, what do we see by the dawn's early light? We are a nation in crisis, a nation with eight out of ten of us sensing that we're going down the wrong road. I speak today as a woman of faith, a woman in the Christian tradition, to address our sacred responsibility to our nation – sacred responsibility is the language of the soul, of the holy, the call to responsibility that goes deeper than politics. My deepest lessons about sacred responsibility to our nation I have learned in government killing chambers, the darkest, most hidden corner of America. As spiritual advisor I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. I do not know what these six men experienced physically as they were killed, but I do know that they experienced great mental anguish, preparing for death, anticipating death, and so dying in their minds a thousand times before they died. Inherent in the practice of the death penalty is the practice of mental torture. I have also been privileged to accompany murder victims' families in their search for healing. The real heroes of my book, Dead Man Walking are a father and mother, Lloyd and Eula LeBlanc, whose only son was murdered. Lloyd said, "Jesus told us to forgive. I am not going to let hate take over me because then I'd be dead too."

... What has happened to us? Practice of the death penalty on our own soil has, I believe, developed a mindset that makes it easier for us to kill those we designate as enemies – or suspected enemies – and to torture them. The death penalty, far from being a peripheral moral issue concerned with the punishment of a few criminals, reveals the very soul of America, and it lays bare our deepest wounds: our racism, our assault on poor people, and our ready instinct to use violence to solve social problems. The death penalty is riddled with racism. Overwhelmingly the punishment of death is meted out to those who kill white people - eight out of every ten persons on death row is there for killing a white person. Rarely is the death penalty sought for those who kill people of color, even though most victims of homicide – 50% plus – are people of color. Disproportionately singles out poor people. 95% of death row prisoners are poor. Death is almost exclusively punishment for poor people. And the third wound. our country's almost-DNA-gene instinct to kill the enemy as the only way to be secure. Here's the pattern: target the enemy, dehumanize the enemy, kill the enemy. And if needed,torture the enemy since he or she is not human anyway. I invite dialogue with both presidential candidates on this issue of the death penalty: no matter how restricted your criteria for use of the death penalty, e.g., that it should only be applied for crimes so heinous that the full outrage of the community must be expressed. The problem with this criterion is that outrage of the community is very uneven, very weighted around the murder of some citizens and almost nonchalant about the murder of others. Thirty two years of experience have taught us that outrage is almost always around the death of white people, seldom over the death of poor people or people of color, no matter how terrible the crime.

...Conversations about the death penalty across this country have led me to understand that there is a deep religious underpinning to our support for the death penalty and for war against foreign enemies. It's because many of us still have an image of a God who demands "eye for an eye," a God pleased with sacrifice... There are contradictory images of God found in the Bible. On which one will we model our lives? Jesus forgave his executioners and showed us the way of compassion, showed a way of inclusive love that calls no one enemy, showed how we must forgive those who hurt us. He once said to a young lawyer and he says to us today: "Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice..."

...No matter how terrible a person's crime, no human being should be tortured; no human being should be killed. All religions teach that life is sacred, but Jesus showed preferential love for the "least of these." Spiritual paths always involve change of attitudes, conversion of life. Is it not time for us as a nation to be converted from our pursuit of violence to become a nation that embraces dialogue and diplomacy with our adversaries? Are we ready to build a Peace Academy alongside our military academies?

...Oh, say, what do we see in the dawn's early light ? Bombs bursting in air? Or a newly budding America, respectful of human rights, refusing violence, actively engaged in diplomacy with our adversaries? I've brought mediation books with me, Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents. I invite you to read them and to join me in abolishing government killing on our native soil and in inaugurating new ways to cherish and protect our Mother Earth. O God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Amen.