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TROY DAVIS TO DIE, BY ONE VOTE
Topic Started: Apr 18 2009, 12:55 PM (908 Views)
Sydney Carton

Yes,the Court ruled 2-1 yesterday(Orthodox Good Friday) on technical(not factual)grounds that it will not give Troy Davis an evidentiary hearing.He therefore dies unless the Supreme Court acts on his behalf within the next thirty days.
We pointed out at the time of the oral pleadings that the Court was obviously split one to one before the case was ever heard everything depended on that third judge.
Well, the man has obviously agonized over this.It has taken him several months to come down on the side of a decision which means death but like the decision of Pontius Pilate completely sweeps aside all question of guilt or innocence.
We will be printing links to the decision as soon as it is available.
Davis is known to have one or more supporters on the Supreme Court but he/they failed to get him a hearing the last time and may again. If this last appeal fails I hope that everyone left here will adopt the same approach that we adopted in the Duke case and absolutely deluge the President ,the Governor,and the Department of Justice with demands for a full scale evidentiary investigation.
However,remember the history of the Scottsboro and the Trenton Six cases and be most circumspect if ask to donate any cash.Some very bad people utilize just causes with very bad intentions.
Davis ought not be allowed to die because of the cynical character of certain of his defenders.
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sdsgo

In re: Troy Anthony Davis 08-16009 04-16-2009

11th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion
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Baldo
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Honestly what bothers me in this case was a crime was committed and it was murder of a Policeman. That is what separates it from the Duke case where no crime was committed.

Troy Davis was there and clearly he was at least a particpant to some degree if not the real perpretator. I wish I knew more about the Troy Davis at the time of the crime.

With that said from what I have read he shouldn't be executed as it appears doubts exists he was the real trigger man. No man should be executed with doubts.
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Sydney Carton

We apologize to the Justice concerned.The first report we cited erroneously stated that he found against Davis on technical grounds,for which he may had good legal reason.Instead,as the article below makes clear,he cast the deciding vote while reiterating the worst of the tripe which we have been hearing for sometime:
"On Thursday, the two-judge majority noted that state courts and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles had exhaustively reviewed Davis’ claims and rejected them.
Judges Joel Dubina and Stanley Marcus said they agreed with those conclusions. “Davis has not presented us with a showing of innocence so compelling that we would be obligated to act today,” .....
SC
Now the learned judges certainly know that the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles has only voted for clemency three times since the 1980's.I am not aware that any of these three lucky defendants had the effrontry to claim they were actually innocent.If the opinion of the present Georgia Pardon board is the criterion no falsely convicted defendant will ever escaped the maximum sadism allowable under Georgia law.
What is more the Board only heard five of the old witnesses and,so far as we know,none of the twelve new witnesses against .We do know that the Board,and 2 of the 3 new judges , are not sufficently interested to compel the testimony of Sylvester"Red" Cole whom the prosecution has no intention of putting within a mile of a witness stand.
It has been said that Cole has not recanted but neither,so far as is known,has Cole ever either denied or explained the evidence of a single one of the twelve witnesses who have freely volunteered to testify against him.
The Georgia Supreme Court has riuled against the hearing of Davis' innocence claim by a mere four-three vote,its own Chief Justice angrily dissenting.Yet the two would assure us,at the expense of the defendant's life,that reading seven of the niineteen affidavits more than met their criterion of guilt.
If ths be so why call the hearing in the first place.Anything the new judges said or read was said and read many years ago.It did not satisfy then and it does not satisfy now.






Updated: 7:11 p.m. April 16, 2009

Federal court rejects Troy Davis’ appeal
Killer gets 30-day stay of execution to pursue appeals
By BILL RANKIN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Thursday rejected death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis’ bid for a new trial on claims he did not kill a Savannah police officer in 1989.

In a 2-1 opinion, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Davis could not establish by clear and convincing evidence a jury would not have found him guilty.



Troy DavisRelated links:

Court issues stay of execution for Troy Davis
Opinion: Our system owes Troy Davis another day in court



• Metro and state news Davis’ innocence claims have attracted international attention. They rely largely on the recantations of key prosecution witnesses who testified at trial and on statements by others who say another man told them he was the actual killer.

In October, the 11th Circuit granted Davis a stay three days before he was to be put to death by lethal injection. It marked the third time Davis’ life was spared before his scheduled execution.

On Thursday, the two-judge majority noted that state courts and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles had exhaustively reviewed Davis’ claims and rejected them.

Judges Joel Dubina and Stanley Marcus said they agreed with those conclusions. “Davis has not presented us with a showing of innocence so compelling that we would be obligated to act today,” they wrote.

The judges said they view the recantations with skepticism and, after reviewing Davis’ claims, “remain unpersuaded.”

Judge Rosemary Barkett dissented. “To execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proferred evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional,” she wrote.

The 11th Circuit kept in place its stay of execution for another 30 days so Davis can pursue his final appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court in October declined to consider a previous appeal.

Davis, 40, stands convicted of killing off-duty Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. The 27-year-old former Army Ranger was shot three times before he could draw his weapon.

Russ Willard, spokesman for state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, said the 11th Circuit made the “correct decision.”

Tom Dunn, one of Davis’ lawyers, said he was disappointed, but would fight on. “Troy is innocent and this struggle is far from over.”
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Sydney Carton

Baldo:
Honestly what bothers me in this case was a crime was committed and it was murder of a Policeman. That is what separates it from the Duke case where no crime was committed.

Troy Davis was there and clearly he was at least a particpant to some degree if not the real perpretator. I wish I knew more about the Troy Davis at the time of the crime.

With that said from what I have read he shouldn't be executed as it appears doubts exists he was the real trigger man. No man should be executed with doubts.
SC:
Baldo,I have never said that I believe Davis innocent(there is not sufficent information-and I have searched diligently-to decide one way or the other).I only came in at here when the Georgia Supreme Court issued a ringing dissent that caused me to re-evaluate the known,uncontested,facts.
Yes,a cop was killed,brutally,and the cops went wild trying to find the killer.The first murder trial I ever sat through(Brooklyn,New York) was a cop killing case and the cops went wild trying to find the killer.They had their choice of one (or all)three thugs who had been together shortly before the murderd.So they ran around the town breaking in doors and beating(and I mean beating) at least one future alibi witness who gave them a story they didn't want to hear.
Within twenty-four hours they had an eye-witness who swore she was riding in the car with the three guys and had seen the whole thing.Two of them turned out to be guilty, on evidence other than hers ;the third managed to get a severance in the middle of the first trial,otherwise he also would have received a death sentence.At the second trial the defense was able to produce over a dozen witnesses to prove a complete alibi for the defendant-and the automobile and the defendant was acquitted,with the approval of both judges involved.If he had been forced to present his defense in the atmosphere of the first trial and in the company of the two guilty men he would certainly have been sentenced to death and the appelate court would not likely have intervened for the relief of only one.
The basic weakness of the Davis case is neither the trial identifications nor the later mass repudiations of those identifications,it is,exactly as in the Duke case,the circumstances under which those identifications were first made.True,there was no rape,but even if there had been,Crystal was ifrom the beginning obviously unable to identify any of the people she actually had seen at the Duke house.We will never probably know whether she was first fed the identifications by Durhan LE or whether she(with Brian,Travis,or Jackie) searched the web or whether she was handed a copy of that infamous "Wanted" poster (by Victoria Peterson?)or read that magazine(newspaper?) article that featured spreads of most of the team not long before the party.
We have the same situation in the Davis case.Red Cole came into the police station(with a high priced attorney) and implicated Troy Davis.Cole apparently did not implicate the third man who was with them for a long time before the shooting and has since testified for both sides.The third man's testimony,as so far publicly given,is entirely unsatisfactory either for one side or the other. He provides one of the main reasons why the courts should order a full inquiry irrespective of what facts will eventually emerges from that inquiry.
None of the seven "identifying" witnesses were shown photographs of either Cole or the third man.In fact it is not yet certain how many(or if any) of them were first shown photographs of anyone but Davis before making the original identifications.
The earliest statements,not the court testimony(nearly two years later) nor the recantations(from shortly before the trial to 2002) are best evidence.But what should have been best evidence seems to have played no part whatsoever in the court's decision.
There is a lot more to be said here(I'll be back) but this is enough for starters.
It is a bad sentence and it will be a major blot on our judicial system if the defendant is allowed to die without a full hearing of all witnesses ,production of all relevant documents, and,of,course,full cross-examinations of everyone concerned.Many of us may not feel inclined to weep for Troy Davis but we should weep for the shame of our country if he dies without the fair hearing which at least four of his jurors and and four out of ten of his recent judges demand that he receive.

Edited by Sydney Carton, Apr 18 2009, 03:43 PM.
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Lodge Pro 345
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.
How do you shoot an Army Ranger three times before he can draw his gun?

.
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Deleted User
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Lodge Pro 345
Apr 18 2009, 10:05 PM
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How do you shoot an Army Ranger three times before he can draw his gun?

.
You surprise him and slow him down with the first bullet; then you shoot him twice more. Anybody doing this to a state trooper (in the latter's official capacity) should be given a scrupulously fair trail and executed like the vermin he is.
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Tidbits

I reviewed the 11th CA opinion.

It appears to be a frivolous appeal.

The court spent a great deal of time on it, in comparison to the merits.

This was a state court case.

It seems there was a trial.

An appeal.

A state habeas case.

An appeal.

A Federal habeas case.

An appeal.

And more.

And more.

Now the claim that he is "actually innocent" is made. Now. Did he just think of this?

There is now a federal law that allows one habeas case. He had that. Before this.

This is another habeas case. But, the law says no.

The law was passed to prevent one case after another after another after another.

This is a state case.

This is federal court.

Why should a federal court intervene?

Why should the limits on federal habeas be ignored?

Why shouldn't the court close down on the holy days of Quanza, Summum, LDS, Islam, Taoism, Masons, and The Independant Order of Odd Fellows and Rebeccas? It may be important to consider the truth of trees, but why should the court take the day off because someone somewhere wasnts to contemplate trees? http://www.summum.us/potpourri/tree.shtml

But, despite all this, the court actually considered the substance of the actual innocence claim. It was not convinced.


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Tidbits

Sydney Carton
Apr 18 2009, 03:42 PM
a crime was committed and it was murder of a Policeman.

....
Troy Davis was there and clearly he was at least a particpant to some degree if not the real perpretator.

....
With that said from what I have read he shouldn't be executed as it appears doubts exists he was the real trigger man. No man should be executed with doubts. ......
...
If more than one person is involved in a murder, all may be guilty.

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Sydney Carton

Tidbits has given more to the Duke Lacross case than I could ever hope to give in a lifetime but he waxes hot on my defense of Troy Davis .I believe our controversy worth continuing ,not to ridicule him but as an example of how minds can work so well together in certain instances and suddenly discover that we appear to be living not in different neighborhoods but on different planets.

T
I reviewed the 11th CA opinion.
SC:
You apparently reviewed pp. 1-34(I fear with less than your usual degree of perspicacity)and neglected to read the only intelligent commentary in the opinion ,pp.34 to 47.
Read it all here:
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200816009ord.pdf
T:
It appears to be a frivolous appeal.

The court spent a great deal of time on it, in comparison to the merits.

This was a state court case.

It seems there was a trial.

An appeal.

A state habeas case.

An appeal.

A Federal habeas case.

An appeal.

And more.

And more.

Now the claim that he is "actually innocent" is made. Now. Did he just think of this?
SC
Tid,cool down;you are apparently still feeling so hot on this issue that you have furthermore failed to assimilate p. 3 :
"Davis then filed his first federal habeus corpus petition on Dec.14,2001...The district court DID NOT RULE ON HIS ACTUAL INNOCENCE CLAIM,instead searching the merits of his constitutiional claims and denying his petition." ,Pp.22-24 which apparently greatly impresses you is the only Federal review of the evidence which Davis has ever had.
Read it again and you will find that two of the three justices concerned did not even find it necessary to discuss eighteen of the nineteen affidavits concerned apart from the extremely brief(and highly inaccurate) consideration they gave to the recanting seven.
The mighty two might have at least have considered the affidavit of Joseph Washington(Washington gave his statement at the very earliest stage of the case and he has never varied it over twenty years despite the pereennial intimadation of the entire state of Georgia) that he saw Red Coles gun down Officer MacPhail.
The two(pp.33-34) in the end are reduced to the evidence of four witnesses:
"The jury chose to believe Coles [The leaned judges do well to use the past tense...for the living jurors have spoken and they no longer believe Coles.]...Coles continues to implicate Davis[The judges really went overboard on this one.Coles has refused to say anything since the original trial.The prosecution chose not to produce Coles at the State Board hearings and has never in twenty years submitted an affidavit from him regarding the testimony of some dozen witnesses who,between 1993 anfd 2001 directly incriminated him.And,after twenty years, two of these three judges now take some unidentifiable hearsay from Coles as additional grounds for sending Davis to his death!];"and the testimony of Larry Young and Valerie Coles conflicts with Davis".
Larry Young is the homeless man[I trust he's found a home by now]
who has most emphatically repudiated his trial "identification".How does he still contradict Davis? Young still says he heard only one man --the shooter --speak to him.Davis has always said that he twice asked Coles to lay off Young.
Young was admittedly semi-intoxicated,down on the ground,being beaten and had a gun on him.It is quite possible under such circumstances that he failed to hear may be four syllables like "lay off" but two of three judges find Young's aauditory lapse incredible and cite it as evidence why Davis must die.
Oh, yes,there is still Valerie Coles,Red's sister.And obviously since the judges have just gone on record as to what a credible guy Red is how could they possibly fail to be impressed by his sister.They sound like a lovely a pair as Travis and Crystal.
Personally I rather prefer the dissent by the only one of the three judges who felt morally obligated to consider the twenty-six affidavits
subnitted against the total of four witnesses cited by the majority:
"When considered altogether the evidence significantly undermines the evidence presented by the State at trial" p.46
T:
There is now a federal law that allows one habeas case. He had that. Before this.
SC:
See above.

T
This is another habeas case. But, the law says no.
SC:
Are you actually claiming ,X,that these judges acted illegally in hearing this appeal? Well then obviously you don't want us to rely
on any dribble which these idiot savants have recently penned in explication of their highly illegal conduct.
T:
[snip]

Why should the limits on federal habeas be ignored?

Why shouldn't the court close down on the holy days of Quanza, Summum, LDS, Islam, Taoism, Masons, and The Independant Order of Odd Fellows and Rebeccas? It may be important to consider the truth of trees, but why should the court take the day off because someone somewhere wasnts to contemplate trees? http://www.summum.us/potpourri/tree.shtml
SC:
But trees lie a lot less frequently than witnesses in capital cases.
T:
But, despite all this, the court actually considered the substance of the actual innocence claim. It was not convinced.
SC:
For the record the majority considered only the substance of the prosection claim,which by the consensus of the Almighty Two,now consists of Red Cole(whom they allege on hearsay evidence to persist in his original claims) Coles sister who knew her brother was facing a possible death sentence,a third witness who originally told the police he couldn't identify anyone,and the fact that a terrified and semi-intoxicated man doesn't recollect hearing four or five syllables uttered two decades back.
Hey,I have never yet said that I believed Davis was innocent;I merely said(and that's more than enough for now ) that it would be a national outrage and a cause of international shame if he is allowed to die without an unbiased and comprehensive consideration of his entire case.So far only a minority of judges have been willing to come his absolutely minimal rights.
On the other hand,this abysmal argument by the Two has come closer than anything so far to conving me that Davis actually is innocent.If that's the best they can do......well.....













Edited by Sydney Carton, Apr 20 2009, 04:03 PM.
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Tidbits

Sydney Carton
Apr 20 2009, 03:00 PM
Tidbits has given more to the Duke Lacross case than I could ever hope to give in a lifetime but he waxes hot on my defense of Troy Davis .I believe our controversy worth continuing ,not to ridicule him but as an example of how minds can work so well together in certain instances and suddenly discover that we appear to be living not in different neighborhoods but on different planets.

T
I reviewed the 11th CA opinion.
SC:
You apparently reviewed pp. 1-34(I fear with less than your usual degree of perspicacity)and neglected to read the only intelligent commentary in the opinion ,pp.34 to 47.
Read it all here:
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200816009ord.pdf
I reviewed the 11th CA opinion ends at page 35.

You have confused a dissent with an opinion of the court.

p. 36
Quote:
 
BARKETT, Circuit Judge, dissenting:


A dissent, even by Justice Scalia when joined by 3 justices has the same power as a handwritten sign at last weeks Tea Party in Zap North Dakota.

It might be read. It might impress someone. It might not. It has no effect.

Although it has no effect, I had scanned Judge Barkett's opinion. It did not impress me.


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Tidbits

Sydney Carton
Apr 20 2009, 03:00 PM
You apparently reviewed pp. 1-34(I fear with less than your usual degree of perspicacity)
Probably. I only "reviewed". More than scanned. Less than studied.

I thought I gave it more time than it required.
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Tidbits

Sydney Carton
Apr 20 2009, 03:00 PM

Now the claim that he is "actually innocent" is made. Now. Did he just think of this?
SC
Tid,cool down;you are apparently still feeling so hot on this issue that you have furthermore failed to assimilate p. 3 :
"Davis then filed his first federal habeus corpus petition on Dec.14,2001...The district court DID NOT RULE ON HIS ACTUAL INNOCENCE CLAIM,instead searching the merits of his constitutiional claims and denying his petition." ,Pp.22-24 which apparently greatly impresses you is the only Federal review of the evidence which Davis has ever had.
Read it again and you will find that two of the three justices concerned did not even find it necessary to discuss eighteen of the nineteen affidavits concerned apart from the extremely brief(and highly inaccurate) consideration they gave to the recanting seven.
The mighty two might have at least have considered the affidavit of Joseph Washington(Washington gave his statement at the very earliest stage of the case and he has never varied it over twenty years despite the pereennial intimadation of the entire state of Georgia) that he saw Red Coles gun down Officer MacPhail.
The two(pp.33-34) in the end are reduced to the evidence of four witnesses:
"The jury chose to believe Coles [The leaned judges do well to use the past tense...for the living jurors have spoken and they no longer believe Coles.]...Coles continues to implicate Davis[The judges really went overboard on this one.Coles has refused to say anything since the original trial.The prosecution chose not to produce Coles at the State Board hearings and has never in twenty years submitted an affidavit from him regarding the testimony of some dozen witnesses who,between 1993 anfd 2001 directly incriminated him.And,after twenty years, two of these three judges now take some unidentifiable hearsay from Coles as additional grounds for sending Davis to his death!];"and the testimony of Larry Young and Valerie Coles conflicts with Davis".
Larry Young is the homeless man[I trust he's found a home by now]
who has most emphatically repudiated his trial "identification".How does he still contradict Davis? Young still says he heard only one man --the shooter --speak to him.Davis has always said that he twice asked Coles to lay off Young.
Young was admittedly semi-intoxicated,down on the ground,being beaten and had a gun on him.It is quite possible under such circumstances that he failed to hear may be four syllables like "lay off" but two of three judges find Young's aauditory lapse incredible and cite it as evidence why Davis must die.
Oh, yes,there is still Valerie Coles,Red's sister.And obviously since the judges have just gone on record as to what a credible guy Red is how could they possibly fail to be impressed by his sister.They sound like a lovely a pair as Travis and Crystal.
Personally I rather prefer the dissent by the only one of the three judges who felt morally obligated to consider the twenty-six affidavits
subnitted against the total of four witnesses cited by the majority:
"When considered altogether the evidence significantly undermines the evidence presented by the State at trial" p.46
p 3.
Quote:
 
Because Davis failed
to raise these constitutional claims before the state court, he sought to overcome
his procedural default of these claims by showing under Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S.
298, 115 S. Ct. 851 (1995), that he should be able to raise these claims anyway
because he was actually innocent of the underlying murder.1 The district court did
not rule on his actual innocence claim, instead reaching the merits of his
constitutional claims and denying his petition.
Notably, Davis did not raise a substantive freestanding claim of actual
innocence in his first federal habeas petition.


Thus, no "actual innocence" claim, but an attempt to allow other claim which he had forfeited (defaulted).

Weird lawyering - maybe inept or maybe tricky. But no "actual innocence" claim as such, the court says.

Courts sometimes discuss the merits of claims they can't consider. That confuses. They mostly are saying, "you would lose anyway." They feel better or think someone will feel better if they discuss it. IIRC this court did that, perhaps for the benefit of SCOTUS.




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Tidbits

Sydney Carton
Apr 20 2009, 03:00 PM
T
This is another habeas case. But, the law says no.
SC:
Are you actually claiming ,X,that these judges acted illegally in hearing this appeal? Well then obviously you don't want us to rely
on any dribble which these idiot savants have recently penned in explication of their highly illegal conduct.
It isn't actually an appeal.
Quote:
 
On October 22, 2008, Troy Anthony Davis (“Davis”), a Georgia death row
inmate, has filed an application with this Court seeking authorization to file a
second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2254 federal habeas petition
, raising for the first
time a freestanding actual innocence claim. Davis had previously filed a federal
habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Georgia in 2001, alleging, among other things, violations of Giglio v. United
States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S. Ct. 763 (1972), Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.
Ct. 1194 (1963), and Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052
(1984). Davis now claims that his execution would violate the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments because he is actually innocent of the offense of murder.
We took the unusual step of staying Davis’s execution, which had been scheduled
for October 27, 2008, and ordered the parties to submit further briefs. Thereafter,
we scheduled the case for oral argument. Having the benefit of the parties’ briefs
and after hearing extensive oral argument, we deny Davis’s application.


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Tidbits

Sydney Carton
Apr 20 2009, 03:00 PM
T:
But, despite all this, the court actually considered the substance of the actual innocence claim. It was not convinced.
SC:
For the record the majority considered only the substance of the prosection claim,which by the consensus of the Almighty Two,now consists of Red Cole(whom they allege on hearsay evidence to persist in his original claims) Coles sister who knew her brother was facing a possible death sentence,a third witness who originally told the police he couldn't identify anyone,and the fact that a terrified and semi-intoxicated man doesn't recollect hearing four or five syllables uttered two decades back.
Hey,I have never yet said that I believed Davis was innocent;I merely said(and that's more than enough for now ) that it would be a national outrage and a cause of international shame if he is allowed to die without an unbiased and comprehensive consideration of his entire case.So far only a minority of judges have been willing to come his absolutely minimal rights.
On the other hand,this abysmal argument by the Two has come closer than anything so far to conving me that Davis actually is innocent.If that's the best they can do......well.....













This court is not deciding guilt.

The Georgia jury did that.

The role of this court is very very limited.
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