Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (GFADP) and Amnesty have been sending teams down to Savannah every weekend collecting signatures for Troy asking DA Larry Chisolm to reopen the case. After 5 weeks, we've got over 6,000 signatures, and the number keeps growing! If you'd like to come down with us and help us reach our goal of 10,000, contact Kathryn at mailto:kathryn.hamoudah@gmail.com.


And of course, please participate in the quick online actions from Amnesty and NAACP, and forward them widely:

Ask DA Larry Chisolm to reopen the case:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=12361


Ask GDC Commissioner Brian Owens to allow Troy Davis contact with the media:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/2446/t/4676/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1616

Promote the “Week of Witness” (June 19-26)
http://www.amnestyusa.org/uploads/file/TroyWoWSavetheDate.pdf

Make a handprint cloth petition (due July 3)
http://www.amnestyusa.org/uploads/file/handprintpetitioninstructions(2).pdf



Again, please join our weekend Savannah canvassing effort! :
coordinator: mailto:kathryn.hamoudah@gmail.com


***

Also, Cynthia Tucker wrote an excellent Op-Ed for AJC:

To be fair, review the Davis case
June 07, 2009
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/

-snip-

But even jurors' unanimity does not guarantee justice. The death penalty is arbitrary and capricious, subject to common prejudices and casual errors, influenced by race and class, gender and geography. Those are among the reasons that the U.S. Supreme Court should give Troy Davis, sentenced to death for the August 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail, the chance to be heard in federal court.

Since the trial, several key witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony, claiming they were pressured by the police to implicate Davis or intimidated by another man who may be guilty of the crime. Most chilling is the recollection of Tonya Johnson, who says she didn't tell police all she knew back then. She now says that she saw a man running from the direction of the shooting that night and that she saw him hide two guns behind the screen door of an abandoned apartment next door.

According to Davis' attorneys, that man was Nathaniel Sylvester Coles, a small-time thug whom they believe Johnson feared too much to tell the truth. It was Coles who first fingered Davis, coolly strolling into a police station hours after the murder, accompanied by a lawyer, to identify Davis as the shooter. And it was atop that dubious testimony that police mounted their case.

It's now apparent that case deserves more thorough review. In May, 27 former jurists and federal prosecutors filed a petition asking the nation's highest court to send the case back to a lower court, where Davis can show "new, never reviewed evidence that strongly points to his innocence." The former prosecutors include Republicans Bob Barr and Larry Thompson, who also served as a deputy attorney general in the administration of George W. Bush.

-snip-

***

mailto:cynthia@ajc.com

what a dear you are.


thanks, so


peace and solidarity, always!!

Thank you.

Benjamin Jealous, President of the Naacp will be his guest!

please tell me about it when you can?

wow....

i am re-heartened to hear that.

i am about to post some articles on the GD thread.

wow, thank you, goclark


peace and solidarity, always!