From the WaPo:
 A Georgia man is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for killing a police officer in 1989, even though the case against him has withered in recent years as most of the key witnesses at his trial have recanted and in some cases said they lied under pressure from police.
Prosecutors discount the significance of the recantations and argue that it is too late to present such evidence.
*****
Three of four witnesses who testified at trial that Davis shot the officer have signed statements contradicting their identification of the gunman. Two other witnesses — a fellow inmate and a neighborhood acquaintance who told police that Davis had confessed to the shooting — have said they made it up.
The guy who hasn’t recanted? The person who, some witnesses say, actually pulled the trigger.
The Burger King where the shooting happened is next to a Greyhound bus station, on a ragged edge of this city’s touristy historic district. As the restaurant was closing at 1 a.m., a fight over a beer was erupting in the parking lot between a homeless man named Larry Young and another man who, some witnesses said, threatened to shoot him.
After the man pistol-whipped Young, a police officer doing an off-duty shift in uniform as a security guard came out. The officer told the man to halt, witnesses said. Before Officer Mark A. MacPhail could unholster his gun, the man shot him once in the chest, then once in the face.
Lacking a gun or other physical evidence, police were forced to rely on witness accounts to determine the shooter.
The witnesses who have recanted say that they were pressured by police to finger the guy, then a 20 year old.
Prosecutors have dismissed the significance of the new testimony.
“A recantation . . . does not prove that the witness’ testimony was in every part the purest fabrication,” Chief Assistant District Attorney David T. Lock wrote in legal papers filed last week.
Yet a sense that procedure, rather than the question of innocence, has driven the case has led Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson (D) to explore changes in the law that would allow appeals courts to more readily review such cases.
None of the new rules seems likely to help Davis before Tuesday, however.
I think that one needn’t prove that it was a fabrication in every part to stay the execution; it’s enough that it be false with regard to the identity of the shooter.ÂÂ
UPDATE: He’s been granted a stay–90 days.
It’s enough that it be intentionally false in any way at all when we’re talking about capital punishment. “Oops” doesn’t cut it when you’ve taken a man’s life.
The fact that this was a cop killing and that multiple witnesses state that the cops pressured them to identify the suspect ought to be enough to commute the death sentence. In my view, you don’t put a guy to death unless you know beyond any doubt that he’s guilty.
tw: suffers justice
I’m with you, Pablo.
TW: ebony self
Just wait ’til Ric finds out.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is expected to rule on this today. They’d better get it right. If they fail to, this is a powerful argument against the death penalty, and it’s about the only one that would cause me to withdraw my support for it.
Brings to mind a Tennessee execution, where a cop died in Memphis after an armed robbery failed…the cop was shot, the perp had a gun and fired it haphazardly, but ballistics seemed to indicate that said perp’s gun wan’t quite big enough to make such a hole. It might have been another cop’s bullet. The Perp was executed anyways.
I didn’t quite feel sorry for Workman; if he hadn’t robbed that Wendy’s, and shot at cops, then the officer wouldn’t have died. Causality flows from the cause, and he caused the death, whether or not the bullet was his.
I guess you have to balance justice with how awfully chagrined the DA’s office would be if the sentence were commuted. That would be like totally embarrassing.
Ric finds it hard to believe that I believe that there might be occasions when we agree.
I’m very pro-death penalty, but that’s so wrong. Officers of the court are supposed to have the pursuit of justice as their first priority, not allowing possible misjustice because of an uncrossed “t” or undotted “i”.
Good post and thread (Darleen’s comment especially appreciated) although somebody here is surfing the slippery slope. Unless I’m mistaken, there are suitable punishments available to society for just about anything committed against its officers of the law.
Also unless I’m mistaken, he deserves it anyway isn’t one of them.
Something does not sit right with me about this one. If it turns out that these people lied during the original trial, they should be punished in a manner equal to, or commensurate with, the harm caused the innocent.
but then no one would ever come forward to recant
(I tried to post this earlier. I apologize if there’s a double post.)
Assuming the facts as described in the article, this guy should not be executed. Not only that but he should be freed and compensated for the time he spent in prison.
That said, let’s not get too hasty about the broader implications. First, there is always risk of error in the criminal justice system. If you can’t accept ANY risk, you can’t have a criminal justice system at all. Second, people always say “death is different,” but if we switched to a system of life without parole, we’d have MORE innocent people languishing in prison forever. Why? Because without capital punishment, we’d never have hordes of pro bono lawyers working on the cases. A guy sentenced to life without parole is no less likely to be wrongly convicted, but he’s much, much less likely to find free legal help.
Third, the law the Post complains about came about because the courts screwed around with the rules, in the guise of constitutional interpretation, to make the capital process absurdly difficult for the state and easy for the criminal to play games with. One of the clearest examples is repeat habeas petitions designed to forestall execution. (In the overwhelming majority of cases, there isn’t the slightest doubt about guilt.) So Congress stepped in and made it very difficult for people convicted of capital crimes to abuse the system with repeat habeas petitions.
The bottom line for me is that this guy probably shouldn’t be executed at all and should be freed instead. (I also agree that the lying witnesses should suffer some consequences.) But the death penalty still should be pursued in appropriate cases.
And then there’s the bit that they were apparently threatened about what would be done to them if they didn’t testify in the police approved manner. While you certainly want people giving truthful testimony, there’s a disturbing “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” quality to this sort of situation.
I’d be just as interested, if not more so, in subornation of perjury charges and perhaps some intimidating a witness charges as well.
Sounds very similar to the Grisham non-fiction about the OK Baseball star who was railroaded right to the edge of execution before the one judge with common sense re-opened the case. The DA was a complete nifong and justice was finally served. “Innoncent Man” is the book. (not the Tom Selleck movie, Gawd! Did I just admit that I remember that movie? Now I’m talking to myself. Maybe nobody noticed.)
Not having had time to delve into the specifics of the case yet, isn’t seeking the recantation of witness statements a standard part of the playbook of death penalty opponents?
doubt is doubt
“…isn’t seeking the recantation of witness statements a standard part of the playbook of death penalty opponents?”
Seeking it is one thing. Securing it from all but one is another thing entirely.
This is, IMO, the biggest problem with the death penalty. What if you’re wrong? There’s not anything you can do to make it right if you’ve accidentally executed the wrong guy. I’m a lot less opposed to capital punishment then I used to be, but I think that people who complain about how long the appeals process takes really ought to give some thought to the consequences (legal, societal and moral) of executing an innocent person.
There is something about this one that smells. I am troubled by the accusations that the police coerced testimony. Maybe there should be some standard as to what degree of proof is required in order to consider execution. DNA. Blood. Fingerprints. I have no clue as to how it could work, just thinking randomly.
From what I am seeing, there was no physical evidence at all, just “eye witness” testimony from a dark parking lot. Personally, I don’t think that should be enough for a death sentence even if the witness doesn’t recant, it looks to me like the whole conviction should get tossed. This one stinks bad.
“Just wait ’til Ric finds out.”
The perfessor might be a little conflicted on this one, according to the WaPo:
“At the heart of Davis’s difficulties is a law passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing — the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.”
I wonder if some of those on the left who are fighting this regret blowing so much credibility on Tookie, now.
B Moe – Eyewitness testimony, to me, seems like it should be insufficient to allow for the death penalty, but at the same time, I do not like hamstringing the judicial sentence by either denying a particular sentence, or in the alternative, mandatory minimums.
The State’s Attorney I worked for wouldn’t have even asked for the death penalty based on what evidence I see in this post. I would stay the execution and try to get to the bottom of this – quickly.
Being a retributivist in my legal thinking – I see this isn’t someone getting what they desrve, on the face of it. It doesn’t help to have the DA look like they are avoiding scrutiny either…
Although once a strong supporter of the death penalty, I now have problems with it. Crimes meriting the death penalty vary from state to state. That’s inequitable right off the bat. And the system is gamed in favor of those with the money for good representation. And I don’t know that I believe it prevents crime; it looks more like retribution. Fine, then; great care should be taken to enssure it is meted out only to the truly guilty. Despite a long appeals process, innocent men have been executed. Frankly, I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather let them all live than allow the state to kill one more innocent man. I’d sure as hell hate to be that innocent man.
Name?
Also, a lot of laws vary from state to state. Is that inequity equally as “troubling” to you?
I would think that the police would be less inclined to try to finger someone innocent just to “close the case”. Mistakes can happen even in perfectly good faith, but to lean on witnesses in a cop-killer case strikes me as odd on the face.
I agree, Tim. It’s also weird that the guy shows up in the presence of his attorney to give a statement accusing this guy, and that the other witnesses recant testimony regarding someone who can’t hurt them unless–and it’s unlikely–he gets out due to their recantations.
You can find a number of compelling stories here.
I’m seeing exactly the opposite. I don’t think it at all improbable that they could have decided who their guy is and then did “what it took” to take him down.
I’m with JD here. There ought to be a more stringent standard than BRD before we take a life. I’m not quite sure how that should be quantified, but it should be something we’re working on. And as I said in an earlier comment that the blog ate twice, I’d be happy to throw the switch on the likes of Richard Allen Davis myself.
Oh, and fuck Tookie Williams. He got what he deserved.
Pablo – As I said, I would hate to pigeon hole the prosecution by saying you must provide A, B & C in order to pursue the death penalty, as there will always be cases deserving of this punishment that simply do not have the necessary criteria. At the same time, absent specific identifying evidence, ie. DNA, blood, fingerprints, I am not really comfortable with a circumstantial case, or one based on the testimony of an eye witness carrying the death penalty. Sometimes, trying to fix the problem via the Legislature just fucks it up more.
True, but where else can you fix it?
On the issue of innocents’ having been executed, you might want to read a concurring opinion written by Scalia last year in Kansas v. Marsh.
True, that. Given the legislative track record of both parties, maybe it is best left the way it is for the time being. I am certainly no fan of getting rid of it, but I think that it should be sought in a far more judicious manner, under circumstances that are well beyond that of a circumstantial case. I guess our concerns would best be addressed to the specific prosecutors. Frankly, though I trust the prosecutors over the defense/plaintiff bar, they are political creatures as well, and my confidence for the integrity of their actions erodes every time another Nifong pulls a stunt.
Attila
Excuse me if scanning the opinion shows people exonerated… I missed all the names of “innocent men [that] have been executed”
I guarantee you that complete abolition of the death penalty WILL mean the death of innocents.
call me cynic or realist, but I see way too much crime – rape, murder, mayhem – to leave the dp off the books.
Want to hold dp to a higher standard? That definitive circumstantial evidence be in play? (ie dna, etc?) Go for it.
But to allow murderers … ones we know beyond doubt are guilty … to keep what they so heinously and with willful malice, took from others is a miscarriage of justice and devalues life.
Darlene, I didn’t phrase my comment well. Scalia shreds the claim that innocent people have been executed. I meant that his opinion is a response to the claim, not that it supports the claim.
Does a society that enforces the death penalty for someone who has taken a life with malice cheapen the sanctity of life, or support it. I think that is the question.
I think that the question, delimited, is simply, “Is this the guy who pulled the trigger and killed a guy over a can of beer?” If we cannot determine that, beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot justify his execution.