BREAKING: SCOTUS orders evidentiary hearing for Troy Davis [UPDATE]
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-2 decision, ordered a federal judge in Georgia on Monday to consider and rule on innocence claims brought by Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis.
The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, calls on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to “receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis’] innocence.”
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the dissent, said the Court’s order is “an extraordinary step-one not taken in 50 years.”
“The Court proceeds down this path even though every judicial and executive body that has examined petitioner’s stale claim of innocence has been unpersuaded, and (to make matters worst) even though it would be impossible for the District Court to grant any relief,” Scalia wrote.
Stevens said Scalia is wrong because Scalia “assumes as a matter of fact that petitioner Davis is guilty of the murder of Officer MacPhail” and assumes the District Court “would have no power to grant relief.”
“Imagine a petitioner in Davis’s situation who possesses new evidence conclusively and definitively proving, beyond any scintilla of doubt, that he is an innocent man,” Stevens wrote. “The dissent’s reasoning would allow such a petitioner to be put to death nonetheless. The Court correctly refuses to endorse such reasoning.”
Davis has been on death row since a jury convicted him in 1991 of murdering Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Since the first trial, seven of nine witnesses used by the prosecution to obtain a conviction have either changed or recanted their testimony in sworn affidavits.
Davis has narrowly avoided execution three times since July 2007 while seeking help from the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Georgia Supreme Court, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
A three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit in April denied Davis’ request for an evidentiary hearing, arguing they were bound by procedural requirements of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
In May, attorneys for Davis filed what was considered at the time a long-shot writ of habeas corpus, a lawsuit that allows an inmate to bring a constitutional claim, with the Supreme Court.
Former Georgia lawmaker Bob Barr and former FBI Director William Sessions joined over 20 other former judges and prosecutors in filing an amicus brief in support of Davis with the Supreme Court.
The Court surprised many in June when it remained quiet on the Davis writ as its previous term expired. Legal groups had expected the Court to wait until at least later this fall when it returned for a new session to make a decision.
Thanks to efforts by groups like Amnesty International and Georgians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty, support for the Davis case has garnered international attention. Former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are among the noted figures calling on clemency for Davis.
DEVELOPING…
UPDATE: We just received the following statement from Laura Moye, director of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign:
“We are grateful that the nation’s highest court has seen the wisdom in granting a new evidentiary hearing to Troy Davis. For years Amnesty International has maintained that this man’s compelling case of innocence needs to see the light of day. Finally it will. Given the lack of hard evidence tying Davis to Officer MacPhail’s murder, it would be nothing short of unconscionable to put him to death as a means of conveniently tying up loose ends. Finally there is an opportunity for justice to truly be served.”