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Conviction: Troy Davis, left, is set to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday after he was convicted of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, right, who was shot dead in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989
Peace: Police officer Mark MacPhail MacPhail’s mother Anneliese MacPhail remains convinced Davis is guilty
Steve Hayes, spokesman for the Board of Pardons and Paroles, said the panel decided to rejected Davis’ request for clemency after hearing hours of testimony from his supporters and prosecutors.
Troy Davis was convicted of the August 19, 1989, murder of Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail, who was working as a security guard at a Burger King when he intervened in an argument between several men in a nearby parking lot.
He was shot in the heart and face without having drawn his gun.
One of the men, Sylvester Coles, went to police and implicated Davis in the killing, and he was arrested four days later.
During Davis’ 1991 trial, many witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail. Two others testified that Davis had confessed the murder to them. The murder weapon was never found, and no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime.
Throughout his trial and subsequent appeals, Davis has maintained his innocence but was sentenced to death in August 1991.
Seven of nine witnesses to the murder changed or recanted their testimony in recent years. Several stated they had felt pressure by police to implicate Davis.
New witnesses implicated Coles in the crime.
Many appeals in state and federal courts followed. Davis and his lawyers argued that the racial composition of the jury and poor advocacy from his lawyers had affected his right to a fair trial.
In an August 2010 decision, the conviction was upheld, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia declaring that the new evidence cast only ‘minimal doubt on his conviction’. Subsequent appeals, including to the Supreme Court, were rejected.
In July 2007, September 2008, and October 2008, execution dates were scheduled but stayed shortly before the events took place.
The decision appeared to leave Davis with little chance of avoiding the execution date. Defence attorney Jason Ewart has said that the pardons board was likely Davis’ last option.
His lawyers have long argued Davis was a victim of mistaken identity. But prosecutors say they have no doubt that they charged the right person with the crime.
MacPhail’s relatives said they were relieved by the decision.
‘That’s what we wanted, and that’s what we got,’ said Anneliese MacPhail, the victim’s mother. ‘We wanted to get it over with, and for him to get his punishment.’
‘Justice was finally served for my father,’ said Mark MacPhail Jr, who was an infant when his father was gunned down. ‘The truth was finally heard.’
Kim Davis, the inmate’s sister, declined immediate comment on the decision.
Amnesty International USA director Larry Cox said in a statement that the decision was ‘unconscionable’.
‘Should Troy Davis be executed, Georgia may well have executed an innocent man and in so doing discredited the justice system,’ Mr Cox said.- but Mr MacPhail’s mother Anneliese remains convinced Davis is guilty.
She said the upcoming execution of her son’s ‘killer’ will bring her peace.
‘I will never have closure,’ Ms MacPhail told CNN. ‘But I may have some peace when he is executed.’
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.
Marching army: Thousands gathered in Atlanta, Georgia, to protest the pending execution on Wednesday of Troy Davis, who they say was wrongly convicted of killing a Savannah police officer in 1989
Crowds: Thousands gathered in downtown Atlanta to protest the pending execution on 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.’
Davis declined to order a special last meal. He will be served what’s on the menu at the Georgia state prison in Jackson before his execution on Wednesday – grilled cheeseburger, oven-browned potatoes, baked beans, coleslaw, cookies and a grape beverage.
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.
Anger: Reverend Al Sharpton speaks to a standing-room only crowd during a prayer service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in support of death row inmate Troy Davis
Megaphone: Martin Luther King III, son of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, joined the march
‘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.’
‘The only thing left to decide is whether you have the courage to do the right thing. It is blatantly clear that there is no reason for this man to be sitting on death row’
Reverend Al Sharpton
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.
New York: Demonstrators gather near Times Square in Manhattan to protest the execution of Davis on Friday
Message: A woman holds a sign at a protest outside President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago, one of 300 rallies held worldwide on Friday, ahead of a last-ditch parole board hearing for Davis
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.
See video here
A leading FBI analyst who gave a lecture last year criticising mainstream Muslims has been caught on camera giving a second presentation urging agents to ‘forget Al Qaeda’ and ‘go after the Death Star’ of Islam.
The Bureau’s William Gawthrop was recorded making the ‘dangerous’ remarks to an audience of over 60 law enforcement officials during a counter-terrorism seminar in New York three months ago.
Gawthrop’s presentation in June told the audience that the fight against Al Qaeda is a ‘waste’ compared to the threat posed by the ideology of Islam itself.
Speech: FBI analyst William Gawthrop gave a presentation urging law enforcement officials to ‘forget Al Qaeda’
The controversial training seminar then went on to compare the ‘internal forces which seek to exert Islamic rule’ to the Death Star in the Star Wars films.
Gawthrop’s 25-minute speech has since been branded ‘mind-numbingly stupid and dangerous’ and has drawn strong criticism from top Senators and representatives from Arab and Muslim-American groups.
During the lecture on June 8, Gawthrop tells the audience: ‘We waste a lot of analytic effort talking about the type of weapon, the timing, the tactics. All of that is irrelevant… if you have an Islamic motivation for actions.’
According to Gawthrop, even taking down hostile states like Iran is futile, since ‘there are still internal forces that will seek to exert Islamic rule again.’
He added: ‘Look at the motive first… if you have an Islamic motivation for actions, group those together.
‘So what is this doctrine? It is an expansive doctrine with a single objective: world imperial, controlling the world.
‘That sounds grandiose… but it is a stated objective. The means to do that is jihad. Jihad is rooted in doctrine. There are identifiable rules of engagement and we will discuss that.’
Controversial: Gawthrop’s speech goes on to compare certain parts of Islam to the Death Star in Star Wars
It has since emerged that Gawthrop said before the speech he was speaking as a private citizen, rather than an FBI analyst
Gawthrop goes on: ‘If you remember Star Wars, that ventilation shaft that goes down to into the depths of the Death Star, they shot a torpedo down there. That’s a critical vulnerability.’
During the presentation Gawthrop then waved a laser pointer at his projected PowerPoint slide, highlighting the words ‘Holy Texts’ and ‘Clerics.’
He then adds: ‘We should be looking at, should be aiming at, these.’
Aki Peritz, a former intelligence analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center, now with the Third Way think-tank in Washington, told Wired.com: ‘This is mind-numbingly stupid and dangerous.
‘If we were to follow his idea to a logical extension, that means we have individuals in every single government agency, at top levels, from CIA to the Defense Department to members of Congress, that are part of this cabal to destroy Western civilization.
‘If you truly believe that, then this is McCarthyism on steroids.’
According to Wired.com, Gawthrop delivered his speech at the New York chapter of Infragrad, a public-private partnership between the FBI and the private sector.
Infragrad has chapters across the U.S. ‘dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States’.
Bosses at Infragrad have since defended the comments made by Mr Gawthrop, insisting that he made a ‘good presentation’.
Joseph Concannon, president and CEO of New York Metro Infragard, told the Danger Room website: ‘We actually thought Bill had a very good presentation.
Mr Gawthrop’s comments about Islam were branded ‘stupid and dangerous’
‘We gained a better understanding of the constraints put on [Muslims] in cooperating with law enforcement by some of the rules and policies they have in place.’
In the June lecture, Gawthrop is said to have spoken as a private citizen, not as an FBI analyst.
The FBI has publicly declared that its counterterrorism training seminars linking ‘mainstream’ Muslims to terrorists was a ‘one time only’ affair that began and ended in April 2011.
Probe: An FBI spokesperson said the bureau would conduct a comprehensive review into the footage, as FBI training should be ‘consistent with its core values’
The latest disclosure by Wired.com prompted the FBI to say it is conducting a comprehensive review of all FBI training and reference materials that may, in any way, relate to religion or culture.
An FBI spokesperson said: ‘We are consulting with outside experts on the development and use of training materials, to best ensure the highest level of quality for new agent training, continuing education for all employees, and any FBI-affiliated training.
‘All training will be consistent with FBI core values, the highest professional standards and adherence to the Constitution.’
CUPERTINO, Calif. – Apple was expected to hold its next big media event on Oct. 4, where the tech giant was set to unveil the next iteration of its popular iPhone, AllThingsDigital reported Wednesday, citing sources close to the situation.
Although Apple could change its plans at any time, sources said the date was selected by the Cupertino, Calif.-based company to showcase the iPhone 5.
Apple’s plan was to make the new device available for purchase within a few weeks after the announcement, sources added.
While the iPhone 5 was a highly-anticipated handset, the media event itself has a lot more importance for Apple than many others as it will be newly-installed CEO Tim Cook’s first big product introduction.
The reason Cook was set to preside over the rollout was that the launch event will mark the first time the public and investors will be able to get a lengthy impression of Cook as Apple CEO, which could set the tone for his new role, according to sources.
Apple’s legendary outgoing CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs has always been closely identified with Apple and its product innovations — the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone and more recently the iPad. Since his decision to step down was announced in August, many investors expressed fears his departure would change the company.
James PerrySpit it or swallow it?…. keep it real· · 5 minutes ago · Privacy:
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