[FADPUpdate] Good News From Georgia

[melliott3 at aol.com]

Good news from Georgia!

Over 18,000 letters to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles have 
helped gain a new hearing for Troy Davis.  Letters and statements from 
concerned citizens can make a difference.

Let's keep the letters going to Gov. Charlie Crist asking him to hold 
off on signing new Death Warrants.

Shine the light,

----Mark



Georgia Supreme Court will hear Troy Davis' appeal

By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/03/07

The Georgia Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear the discretionary 
appeal of convicted cop killer Troy Anthony Davis, whose scheduled 
execution last month was put on hold by the state Board of Pardons and 
Paroles.

The court has put it on its November calendar.

Davis was given a 90-day stay of execution July 16, just 24 hours 
before he was scheduled to die by injection for the 1989 murder of 
Savannah police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, who was working an 
off-duty job when he responded to a fight in a parking lot.

The parole board was troubled by questions raised by Davis' lawyers 
about his conviction and they have scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

Davis' lawyers have tried to present the new witnesses information to 
appeals courts, but they have refused to hear it —- in part due to a 
federal law designed to expedite death penalty appeals.

Through the courts, Davis had asked a judge in Savannah to grant him an 
extraordinary appeal but Judge Penny Haas Freesemann ruled that Davis' 
new evidence did not meet the legal standards for new trials. Some of 
the new evidence was cumulative to evidence Davis presented at trial, 
some was obtained as long as 10 years ago, some was based on 
inadmissible hearsay evidence and some was not sworn testimony, the 
judge said.

In her six-page ruling, Haas Freesemann wrote she had "exhaustively 
reviewed" each of the statements and considered the relevant trial 
testimony in great detail.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider that evidence.


 ********************************************

Sent by:

Mark Elliott
Director, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, FADP.org
2840 W. Bay Drive, #118
Belleair Bluffs, FL 33770
(727)215-9646
mark at fadp.org





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