The mother of a slain police officer says the upcoming execution of his ‘killer’ will bring her peace – despite more than 2,000 activists forming a huge protest in the streets against the conviction. Troy Davis, 42, is set to be executed by lethal injection next Wednesday after he was convicted of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, who was shot dead in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989. Continue reading after the jump.
Anti-death penalty activists, who also claim Davis was wrongly convicted, chanted and held banners through Atlanta on Friday – but Mr MacPhail’s mother Anneliese remains convinced Davis is guilty.
The case has captured international attention because of concerns about the quality of evidence involved in Davis’s conviction – but Ms MacPhail said she has ‘never had any doubts’ it was him.
‘I think these people are just against the death penalty,’ she told CNN, of the many protesters who claim to be worried the state will put an innocent man to death. ‘They don’t know what happened.’
Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles is expected to meet on Monday to consider whether to stop Davis’ execution by lethal injection, which is scheduled for next Wednesday.
‘I pray that this rally will have an impact on Pardons and Paroles,’ said marcher Solana Plaines, of Savannah, Georgia. ‘I hope they will do the right thing.’
‘I will never have closure. But I may have some peace when he is executed’
Mark MacPhail’s mother Anneliese
Davis’s supporters say there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime and that key witnesses in his trial have since recanted their testimony.
‘You just can’t give up hope,’ said Ellen Kubica, who travelled all the way from her home in Germany to attend Friday’s event, which featured banners reading: ‘Too much doubt to execute.’
Martin Luther King III, son of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, joined the march. Reverend Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist and television show host, also attended.
‘The only thing left to decide is whether you have the courage to do the right thing,’ he said of the parole board. ‘It is blatantly clear that there is no reason for this man to be sitting on death row.’
In a rare move, the U.S. Supreme Court in August 2009 ordered a new hearing for Davis to assess what he said was new evidence showing his innocence.
The justices transferred the case to a U.S. District Court in Georgia for a hearing and determination of his claims that new witnesses will clearly establish his innocence.
A year later, the judge, William T. Moore Jr, rejected Davis’ claims of innocence. But on Thursday, supporters of Davis delivered petitions with more than 600,000 names to the parole board.
In a column last week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, former FBI Director William Sessions called for Davis’s sentence to be commuted to life in prison, saying the case was ‘permeated in doubt’.
However in an opposing column written in late 2008 and republished on Thursday, Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who prosecuted Davis, said the condemned man had a fair trial.
The claim that seven witnesses at the trial had subsequently recanted their testimony was ‘not believable’, Lawton wrote – and he denied any witnesses had been coerced by police.
