Here’s a respect life question: Is innocence more important than finality?Posted: 10.22.09 “Unfortunately, it is much too easy to allow esoteric legal principles to justify the killing of an innocent man — as long as you do not have to be there to hold his family or to watch him die. ”
Dale Recinella is the coordinator of Death Row Ministries, St. Mary’s Church, Macclenny. In the early morning of Aug. 19, 1989, Savannah police officer Randy MacPhail, 27, was gunned down as he rushed to the rescue of a homeless man crying for help from an attacker. In August of 1991, Troy Anthony Davis was convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of Officer MacPhail. There was no physical evidence against Davis. Now he claims a mountain of new evidence can prove his innocence — evidence which no court can hear because he is out of appeals and barred from the courts by procedural rules enacted to speed up executions. The state of Georgia wants to execute Davis without even looking at the new evidence of innocence. That would be normal under the American death penalty. Florida has done that in numerous cases, including the 2006 case of Arthur Dennis Rutherford. The Florida Supreme Court refused, 6–1, to grant a hearing on stacks of sworn affidavits that the state’s key (and really only) witness was mentally ill and had confessed to reputable staff that she was the one who killed the victim. Catholic Florida Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead dissented vehemently. For those of us who watched the horror of the Rutherford case unfold before our eyes, the Davis case has been déjà vu. U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Rosemary Barkett, recently dissented from that court’s refusal to give Davis a hearing on his new evidence of innocence, saying: “He was convicted and sentenced based upon testimony of nine state witnesses. In the affidavits (obtained by appellate counsel for Davis), seven of nine key trial witnesses recanted their testimony which pointed to Davis as MacPhail’s murderer. The two remaining nonrecanting witnesses were Sylvester ‘Red’ Coles, who was himself alleged to have been the shooter in affidavits, and Steve Sanders, who identified Davis at trial two years after the incident despite admitting to police immediately following the shooting that he would not be able to recognize the shooter. The majority of the affidavits support the defense’s theory that, after Coles raced to the police station to implicate Davis, the police directed all of their energy toward building a case against Davis, failing to investigate the possibility that Coles himself was the actual murderer.” A divided Georgia Supreme Court and a divided 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals failed to grant Davis an evidentiary hearing on the new evidence. The courts are not the only ones divided over whether actual innocence should trump finality and execution. The police are divided: Some believe that the execution of the wrong man is a profound injustice to the family and honor of MacPhail; others believe that only the expeditious execution of Davis will honor MacPhail’s memory. The original 12 jurors are divided: Almost 20 years ago, they unanimously found Davis guilty in just two hours and passed a death sentence in seven. Now, three have died, two could not be reached by reporters, three refused to comment and four are having second thoughts. Even with former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI weighing in for clemency, the people of Savannah, Chatham County and the State of Georgia are divided. But a historic moment has occurred. On Aug. 17, 2009, for the first time in 50 years, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a local federal court to hold a hearing on whether Davis might in fact be innocent. Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented, believing that actual innocence should not trump finality. Perhaps they have never witnessed the execution of an innocent man or peeled the man’s young adult daughters from him after their final goodbyes or carried them out as they sobbed so hard they could not walk. Unfortunately, it is much too easy to allow esoteric legal principles to justify the killing of an innocent man — as long as you do not have to be there to hold his family or to watch him die. Recinella is the coordinator of Death Row Ministries, St. Mary’s Church, Macclenny.
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