No Clemency for Troy Davis
Despite worldwide protests and letters from the likes of President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 51 members of Congress, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled Tuesday morning that Troy Davis should die by lethal injection Wednesday.
Despite worldwide protests and letters from the likes of President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 51 members of Congress, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled Tuesday morning that Troy Davis should die by lethal injection Wednesday.
Davis, found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Ga., in 1989, had his death row case temporarily stayed in three earlier instances, and the majority of witnesses who testified against him have recanted their original testimony.
But despite a case that lawyers have for years been arguing was too weak to merit the death penalty, the fourth attempt to save Davis’ life has failed.
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The case has been a slow and convoluted exercise in legal maneuvering and death penalty politics. It has included last-minute stays and a rare Supreme Court decision.
Because Georgia’s governor has no power to stay executions, the parole board was the last hope for Mr. Davis.
“I don’t see any avenues to the Supreme Court,” said Anne S. Emanuel, a law professor at Georgia State University who has formally reviewed the case and found it too weak to merit the death penalty. “There’s nothing else apparent.”
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The president can’t pardon everyone in prison for marijuana convictions. We need clemency commissions. Lots of them.
Fulton Leroy Washington turned to art to cope with an unjust federal sentence. The story of his path to freedom is worth remembering as Congress considers prison reform.
On Tuesday, he granted 78 pardons and 153 commutations—the record for any president in a single day—to individuals with nonviolent offenses.
The applications of thousands of federal inmates eligible for commuted sentences are bottlenecked, and the clock is ticking.
This year, the president should extend some Thanksgiving clemency to human beings—starting with Leonard Peltier.
Despite the pontiff's best efforts, he couldn't persuade a Georgia parole board to grant clemency for Kelly Gissendaner, a death row inmate due to be executed Tuesday evening.
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