Congressmen Johnson, Lewis join ranks of Troy Davis supporters
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U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson is flanked by Troy Davis’ supporters as he talks to the press outside the Jackson, Ga., prison where Davis is on death row.
Johnson, whose 4th District includes portions of DeKalb, Rockdale and Gwinnett counties, and Lewis visited Davis at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson on May 29.
They are joined by 27 former judges, justices and prosecutors who are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Davis’ claims of innocence to be heard in federal court.
Davis was sentenced to die in 1991 for the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail, solely on the basis of eyewitness testimonies. Seven of the nine witnesses who testified have recanted or changed their trial testimony.
Johnson, who has been involved in the Davis case for nearly two years, said he went to encourage Davis to hang on and keep the faith.
“And as it ended up, he encouraged us by leading us in prayer and telling us to stay strong,” Johnson said.
Lewis, who represents Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, said Davis is not bitter, nor hostile.
“He wants justice. And that’s what we must fight for,” he said. “We need to put this at the top of the agenda of America and the world. We must do, we must act and we must act now.”
Johnson has been meeting with Davis’ sister Martina Correia since 2007 and he signed a letter written by Lewis and others to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker seeking a new trial.
No physical evidence links Davis to the murder, and the weapon used in the crime was never found. Davis has maintained his innocence throughout the trial and subsequent appeals. He says he was wrongfully convicted of the crime as a result of false identification.
Davis’ case has garnered national and international attention, and people such as Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, former President Jimmy Carter, a host of congressmen and women, former judges, legal pundits and the new head of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, have called for him to get a new trial.
Johnson, a former defense attorney and magistrate judge, wrote his own letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles in July 2007 asking for clemency for Davis. He said the lack of evidence, Davis’ claims of innocence, and the unreliable eyewitness testimony have all raised substantial questions in the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on Davis’ request to send his case back to a federal judge to rule on his claims of innocence.
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« marilyn jackson wrote on Sunday, Jun 21 at 11:34 AM »
I am a a Black women living in the southern part of ga.- Savannah, Georgia where plantation houses still exit. Savannah have aprtments that bear the name of the old plantation houses. Hanging moss from the oaktrees where Black men hung for days are still standing hump over from the body weight of the slaves. the stinch of the Savannah river where the blood of our brothers and sisters still full the city as a reminder of the horrors of slavery. I have witness the injustice that Black men have suffered under this system. There were two known cases I have witness where the DA and city policemen have withheld evidence that would have cleared two Ga. death row inmates. One of those brothers were Mr. Earl Charles and the other was Mr. Gary Nelson. Mr. Nelson was on death row for 11 years until he was found innocent of the crime because hair fibers that was suppressed from the defense attorney. Mr. Charles was found innocent after his attorney discovered the key evidence to free him was in the basement at the old Habersham Street jailhouse. These known racist facts about the previous DA and the city of Savannah police department bear witness that the judicial system in Savannah Ga. is crrupt and racist and should stand trial for a numerious amount of charges- namely four police corruption, contempt of court, harrassing witnesses, falsifing government documents, deflammation of character, etc. Instead of Troy Davis being on trial, it should be the former DA and the cops that falsified documents to get a conviction. Was slavery really abolished in 1865? No, slavery is still alive and living well in the jails and prisons in the antebellum south including racist Savannah, Georgia.
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