[Peace] A Travesty of Justice: Troy Has Been Denied Clemency

Tue Sep 20 10:12:59 CDT 2011

We woke to bad news this morning: the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles
has denied clemency for Troy Davis.

You can read more about this in the message from Campaign to End the Death
Penalty director Marlene Martin below.

There is still time to act. Troy's execution is set for 6:00 pm Urbana time
Wednesday the 21st (tomorrow). Please urge your member to contact the GBPP
telling them to reconsider.

Attached to this email are flyers for the "Speak Out: No Death Penalty! We
Are Troy Davis!" event that will take place Wednesday Sept 21, 5:30 pm, at
the Alma Mater.
Please send those around and urge your members to turn out.
We will stand with Troy Davis no matter the out come.

Again I invite you to the Speak Out to take the mic and demand justice for
Troy and an end to this injustice system.

Thank you for all that you have done and will do,
Leighton Christiansen
International Socialist Organization &
Campaign to End the Death Penalty

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marlene Martin <marlene at nodeathpenalty.org>
Date: Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 9:22 AM
Subject: [CEDP] A Travesty of Justice: Troy Has Been Denied Clemency
To: CEDP national list serve <cedp_national_office at yahoogroups.com>

**

*A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE: TROY HAS BEEN DENIED CLEMENCY
*
Troy Anthony Davis has been denied clemency by the Georgia Board of Pardons
and Parole. This means that Troy could be executed tomorrow at 7 p.m. if the
board does not reverse its decision, and if no court intervenes.

Members of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty will not idly sit by while
a murder is carried out in the name of the state of Georgia. We will be
holding speakouts and rallies to *demand that this execution be stopped* and
to urge the pardons board to reverse its decision. We encourage everyone to
come out if they can and continue to phone, fax and e-mail messages to the
board.

Over 1 million people have signed petitions in support of clemency for Troy.
More than 3,000 people marched and rallied for Troy just five days ago in
Atlanta--the largest demonstration of support for any death row prisoner
since the protests to stop the execution of Stan Tookie Williams in
California in 2005. Global actions of solidarity were held all over the
world, including Germany, Hong Kong, Belgium and Nigeria, and more than 300
actions that took place across the U.S.

Troy is supported by numerous civil rights leaders, including NAACP
president Ben Jealous, Jesse Jackson of Rainbow Push, and Al Sharpton of the
National Action Network. Other prominent supporters include President Jimmy
Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former FBI Director William Sessions, and
former federal prosecutor and death penalty supporter Bob Barr.

The question that has to be asked is: *Why can't the members of the Georgia
Board of Pardons and Paroles see what over a million people have?
*
No physical evidence connects Troy to the murder for which he was condemned
to death, and seven of the nine witnesses against him at his original trial
have recanted their original testimony against Troy. Brenda Davis, one of
the jurors in that trial, told CNN in 2009, "If I knew then what I know now,
Troy Davis would not be on death row. The verdict would be 'not guilty.'"

Why isn't this good enough to win clemency for Troy? For that matter, why
isn't it good enough to win him a new trial where the evidence of his
innocence could be heard by a jury?

The answer is simple: It is good enough. People have won reversals in their
cases for far less than what Troy has put forward.

So why are so many politicians and state officials in Georgia determined to
kill Troy?

This case is not merely a matter of guilt or innocence. Race and class have
everything to do with why Troy was arrested in the first place, and why he
has had such a hard time getting a hearing in the courts ever since. Troy
was a Black man accused of killing a white police officer in a city of the
Deep South, and he was too poor to afford good legal representation at his
first trial.

Now that he does have lawyers who have been able to unravel the case against
him, Troy is required under the law to prove his innocence in a court system
that wants to accept the evidence as it was presented against him nearly 20
years ago. Without incontrovertible proof of innocence--like DNA testing
that excludes him--it is very difficult to prove innocence in the eyes of
the law.

It all comes down to this terrible truth, as Troy himself put it in an
interview in the *New Abolitionist: **"Georgia feels it's better to kill me
than admit I'm innocent."
*
If Georgia goes forward and executes Troy Davis, it will be very definition
of a modern-day lynching.

When Blacks were lynched in this country, it was often based on a lie--that
they were guilty of some crime and deserved their fate. And there was no
recourse for them in the court system or wider power structure. The
perpetrators of lynchings were almost never punished--only 1 percent of such
cases ever went trial, and far fewer were ever convicted.

Troy Davis has been convicted and sentenced to death based on a series of
lies--and he, too, has found no recourse. Because "Georgia feels it's better
to kill me than admit I'm innocent."

*WE MUST STAND UP AGAINST THIS MODERN-DAY LYNCHING AND SAY NO TO THE
EXECUTION OF TROY DAVIS AND NO TO THE RACIST DEATH PENALTY.
*
For more information on Troy's case and to keep posted on what you can do
today and tomorrow, visit the CEDP website at
http://nodeathpenalty.org.Send your messages urging reversal to the
Georgia Board of Pardons and
Parole--Call 404-656-5651, e-mail webmaster at pap.state.ga.us
<mailto:webmaster at pap.state.ga.us> <webmaster at pap.state.ga.us> and fax
404-651-8502.
  __._,_.___
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__,_._,___

-- 
Leighton Christiansen
319-530-0119
leightonlc at gmail.com
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