The state Board of Pardons and Paroles Tuesday morning denied clemency for Troy Anthony Davis, a man condemned to death for the 1989 fatal shooting of Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark MacPhail, a Columbus High graduate.
"After considering the request, the Board has voted to deny clemency," the pardons board said in a news release.
Anneliese MacPhail of Columbus had still been asleep this morning when she got word from her daughter-in-law. "She just said, 'We won, we won," Anneliese MacPhail said by phone.
"I'm hoping that it's all going to be over with," she said. "I hope this is it. I'm really going to be satisfied when it's done."
The board rejected a last-ditch effort made by Davis' attorneys Monday to spare him from the lethal injection. The attorneys insisted the case had too much conflicting evidence to be a death penalty case, pointing to witness recantations and new testimony they said implicates a man who was with Davis the night of the shooting.
The board, however, rarely grants such requests clemency. The board has not granted clemency since May 2008, when confessed killer Samuel David Crowe was spared just hours before his execution.
Davis' claims of innocence led to years of appeals. The case even reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2009 ordered a rare evidentiary hearing for Davis.
Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions urging the pardons board to grant Davis clemency, and several high-profile figures such as former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI had called for a new trial.
The board's decision was certain to ignite further protests from groups that claim Davis is innocent. Amnesty International announced plans to protest the decision this evening on the steps of the state capitol, and called for a "Day of Protest."
"It is unconscionable that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied relief to Troy Davis," the organization said in a statement. "Allowing a man to be sent to death under an enormous cloud of doubt about his guilt is an outrageous affront to justice."
But the MacPhail family welcomed the news. They said on Monday that there was no doubt in their mind the right man is on death row.
Randy Robertson, vice president of the state Fraternal Order of Police, said, "I do feel sorry that we're all at this point, but it's 100 percent Troy Davis' fault that we're here."
"Now Troy Davis has to pay for his crime," he added.
Davis is set to be executed at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Ga.
Davis attorney Stephen Marsh on Monday had told reporters he was confident the legal team had established "substantial doubt in this case and given the level of doubt that exists in this case, we believe that an execution is simply not appropriate."
In a 60-page petition submitted to the board, Davis' attorneys pointed the finger at a man who was with Davis the night of the shooting.
"What we now know casts considerable doubt on Mr. Davis's guilt and implicates the state's star witness, Sylvester ?Redd' Coles, as the actual murderer," the attorneys wrote. Defense attorneys said Coles was never considered a suspect, in part because the police were "working under great stress" and "understandably upset that one of their own had been murdered."
Prosecutors and MacPhail's family offered a rebuttal, saying they were convinced beyond a doubt that the right man is awaiting execution.
"They keep trying their best to prove his innocence and there's nothing there. He was found guilty, and he is still guilty," said Joan MacPhail, Mark MacPhail's widow. She told reporters after the hearing Monday that "we need to go ahead and execute him."
This marks the fourth time the state has set an execution date for Davis.
"I'm going to be convinced when it's over," Anneliese MacPhail said.
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McClatchy-Tribune News Service
