TROY DAVIS1968-2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163498/tomorrow-georgia-murders-troy-davis?rel=emailNation
All,
From Chattel Slavery to Jim Crow terrorism to 21st century mass incarceration and from Dred Scott to the Scottsboro Boys to Mumia Abu-Jamal; from the over 500 INNOCENT black men freed from many years of unjust American imprisonment over the last decade ALONE as a result of DNA evidence and the endless recantation of false "witnesses" who have been systematically terrorized, beaten, manipulated, and paid off by white police and prosecutors (see previous email article on Cornelius Dupree, Jr. who was freed in January earlier this year in Texas after 31 years of racist trumped up charges and incarceration) AND the present vicious STATE MURDER OF TROY DAVIS in Georgia later today NOTHING HAS CHANGED. REPEAT: NOTHING HAS CHANGED. NOTHING AT ALL...
Kofi
Tomorrow, Georgia Murders Troy Davis
by Dave Zirin
September 20, 2011
The Nation
It’s with shock that I report that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied clemency for Troy Anthony Davis. The 42-year-old Davis is now due to be executed tomorrow, Wednesday September 21, at 7 pm. For those unfamiliar with the case, let’s be clear: Davis’s execution is little more than a legal lynching. This is a demonstrably innocent man that the state is about to execute in the premeditated manner of a murder.
The facts speak for themselves. Back in 1989, nine people testified that they saw Troy Davis kill Officer Mark MacPhail. Since that time, seven have recanted their testimony. Please allow me to repeat: of the nine people who testified that Troy killed Officer Mark MacPhail, seven have recanted their testimony. Beyond the eyewitnesses, there was no physical evidence linking Troy to Officer MacPhail’s murder. None. Three jurors have signed affidavits saying that if they had all the information about Troy, they would not have voted to convict. One juror even arrived in person to the Board of Pardons and Paroles to say to their faces that she would not have voted to convict if she’d had the facts. Another woman has even come forward to say that a different man on the scene that night, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, bragged afterward about doing the shooting. Of the two witnesses who still maintain that Troy was the triggerman, one is Sylvester “Redd” Coles.
From day one, Troy has maintained his innocence. But he was the wrong color, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong bank account and the wrong legal team, so he was thrown into the death house with little fanfare. Yet the tireless work of Troy’s family, particularly his sister Martina, brought international attention to the case. From former President Jimmy Carter, to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, to Pope Benedict XVI, to Reagan’s former FBI Director, William Sessions, to the more than one million people who signed petitions, the call has gone out to spare Troy’s life. But the Board of Pardons and Paroles didn’t care. Previously the Board issued a statement that they would only allow the execution to go through, if there was “no doubt” as to his guilt. They lied.
As Brian Kammer, one of Davis’s attorneys, said Tuesday after the decision was announced, “I am utterly shocked and disappointed at the failure of our justice system at all levels to correct a miscarriage of justice.” He’s correct. Demonstrations have been planned for today in cities around the country. I know that Washington, DC, will see people come out at 6 pm at 14th and Park Rd. NW. I know the Supreme Court could still intervene or the board could withdraw its death warrant. These are slim options, but I also know that this isn’t over until they send the poison into Troy’s veins. Troy himself has refused a “last meal,” choosing to fight until his last breath. We owe him nothing less.
Please take a moment and call District Attorney Larry Chisolm at 912-652-7308 and ask that he withdraw the death warrant.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/04/innocent-man-jailed-since-1979-likely-to-be-freed/
Innocent man jailed in Texas since 1979 now free
January 4th, 2011
CNN
A Texas man imprisoned 30 years ago on aggravated robbery charges had his conviction overturned on Tuesday after DNA evidence exonerated him.
Dallas County Judge Don Adams overturned Cornelius Dupree Jr.’s conviction Tuesday, clearing his name officially.
"It's a joy to be free," Dupree, 51, said outside court.
Dupree has served more years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit than anyone else in the state who was later exonerated by DNA evidence. Only two other people exonerated by DNA have spent more time in prison in the entire country, the Innocence Project said. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted prisoners because of DNA testing since 2001, more than any other state.
Dupree told CNN after becoming a free man that he had "mixed emotions" about the hearing considering how long he had been incarcerated.
"I must admit there is a bit of anger, but there is also joy, and the joy overrides the anger," he told CNN. "I'm just so overwhelmed with the joy of being free."
The judge's decision followed comments from Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who said the DNA testing shows Dupree "did not commit this crime."
Dupree is trying not to be too angry, despite having 30 years of his life taken away.
"I think that could have happened to anyone," he told CNN. "It's just unfortunate that it happened to me. The system needs to be corrected somehow."
That system he refers to includes Dallas specifically, where a record 21 people have been exonerated on DNA evidence, and Texas as a whole.
"Cornelius Dupree spent the prime of his life behind bars because of mistaken identification that probably would have been avoided if the best practices now used in Dallas had been employed,” Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said in a press release. "Let us never forget that, as in the heartbreaking case of Cornelius Dupree, a staggering 75% of wrongful convictions of people later cleared by DNA evidence resulted from misidentifications.”
Nina Morrison, senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project, told CNN "an enormous number" of the wrongly accused people convicted in Dallas and around the country were convicted on the basis of mistaken witness identification.
But she said that big improvements in those procedures have been made "so that what happened to Mr. Dupree doesn't happen to anyone else."
Morrison attributed Dupree's exoneration also to the work of the district attorney who has been examining previous convictions closely - and to Dallas County's saving of evidence.
"Dallas has been a leader in saving evidence," she said, noting that even though the policy was evidence had to be saved from cases from 1981 and later, evidence from Dupree's case in 1979 still existed.
"So it was something of a small miracle" that it was preserved, she said.
Watkins, the district attorney, said there were really no standards in place about how to keep evidence, but when he came into office he made it his job to do whatever he could to "not just to seek convictions but to seek justice."
"We created a unit that specifically looked at claims of innocence," he said. "And unfortunately it shows people who made those claims were truly innocent."
Watkins works with Morrison and others at the Innocence Project now, hoping to right wrongs from the past, and bring trust back to a system that has been brought into question.
"It gives us credibility now," he said. "[Residents] actually believe in what we're doing, that we're here not just to seek convictions but to seek justice and seek the truth."
Dupree was paroled six months ago after DNA tests results came back. He was declared innocent on Monday, the Innocence Project said.
Dupree was accused of being one of two men who forced a 26-year-old woman and another male into a car at gunpoint in 1979, forcing them to drive the car and robbing them in the process, according to court documents. The two men also were accused of raping the female, court documents said. But, prosecutors did not pursue rape charges in the case because it would not result in additional jail time, according to the Innocence Project.
The female victim initially identified Dupree from a photo line-up, but the male was unable to do so, according to court documents. At trial, however, both victims said Dupree and his co-defendant Anthony Massingill were the ones who committed the crime. They were convicted, and Dupree was sentenced to 75 years. Massingill, who is also serving time for a separate rape charge, is expected to also have his conviction set aside, the Innocence Project said.
Dupree has been fighting for his innocence since the day he was arrested, and for years following his conviction claiming he was mistakenly identified as the suspect. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.
“Mistaken identification has always plagued the criminal justice system, but great strides have been made in the last three decades to understand the problem and come up with fixes like those being considered by the state Legislature that help minimize wrongful convictions,” Morrison said in a press release. “We hope state lawmakers take note of the terrible miscarriage of justice suffered by Cornelius. When the wrong person is convicted of a crime, the real perpetrator goes free, harming everyone.”
All,
From Chattel Slavery to Jim Crow terrorism to 21st century mass incarceration and from Dred Scott to the Scottsboro Boys to Mumia Abu-Jamal; from the over 500 INNOCENT black men freed from many years of unjust American imprisonment over the last decade ALONE as a result of DNA evidence and the endless recantation of false "witnesses" who have been systematically terrorized, beaten, manipulated, and paid off by white police and prosecutors (see previous email article on Cornelius Dupree, Jr. who was freed in January earlier this year in Texas after 31 years of racist trumped up charges and incarceration) AND the present vicious STATE MURDER OF TROY DAVIS in Georgia later today NOTHING HAS CHANGED. REPEAT: NOTHING HAS CHANGED. NOTHING AT ALL...
Kofi
Tomorrow, Georgia Murders Troy Davis
by Dave Zirin
September 20, 2011
The Nation
It’s with shock that I report that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied clemency for Troy Anthony Davis. The 42-year-old Davis is now due to be executed tomorrow, Wednesday September 21, at 7 pm. For those unfamiliar with the case, let’s be clear: Davis’s execution is little more than a legal lynching. This is a demonstrably innocent man that the state is about to execute in the premeditated manner of a murder.
The facts speak for themselves. Back in 1989, nine people testified that they saw Troy Davis kill Officer Mark MacPhail. Since that time, seven have recanted their testimony. Please allow me to repeat: of the nine people who testified that Troy killed Officer Mark MacPhail, seven have recanted their testimony. Beyond the eyewitnesses, there was no physical evidence linking Troy to Officer MacPhail’s murder. None. Three jurors have signed affidavits saying that if they had all the information about Troy, they would not have voted to convict. One juror even arrived in person to the Board of Pardons and Paroles to say to their faces that she would not have voted to convict if she’d had the facts. Another woman has even come forward to say that a different man on the scene that night, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, bragged afterward about doing the shooting. Of the two witnesses who still maintain that Troy was the triggerman, one is Sylvester “Redd” Coles.
From day one, Troy has maintained his innocence. But he was the wrong color, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong bank account and the wrong legal team, so he was thrown into the death house with little fanfare. Yet the tireless work of Troy’s family, particularly his sister Martina, brought international attention to the case. From former President Jimmy Carter, to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, to Pope Benedict XVI, to Reagan’s former FBI Director, William Sessions, to the more than one million people who signed petitions, the call has gone out to spare Troy’s life. But the Board of Pardons and Paroles didn’t care. Previously the Board issued a statement that they would only allow the execution to go through, if there was “no doubt” as to his guilt. They lied.
As Brian Kammer, one of Davis’s attorneys, said Tuesday after the decision was announced, “I am utterly shocked and disappointed at the failure of our justice system at all levels to correct a miscarriage of justice.” He’s correct. Demonstrations have been planned for today in cities around the country. I know that Washington, DC, will see people come out at 6 pm at 14th and Park Rd. NW. I know the Supreme Court could still intervene or the board could withdraw its death warrant. These are slim options, but I also know that this isn’t over until they send the poison into Troy’s veins. Troy himself has refused a “last meal,” choosing to fight until his last breath. We owe him nothing less.
Please take a moment and call District Attorney Larry Chisolm at 912-652-7308 and ask that he withdraw the death warrant.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/04/innocent-man-jailed-since-1979-likely-to-be-freed/
Innocent man jailed in Texas since 1979 now free
Cornelius Dupree Jr., left, and Innocence Project lawyer Nina Morrison talk to CNN after Dupree became a free man.
January 4th, 2011
CNN
A Texas man imprisoned 30 years ago on aggravated robbery charges had his conviction overturned on Tuesday after DNA evidence exonerated him.
Dallas County Judge Don Adams overturned Cornelius Dupree Jr.’s conviction Tuesday, clearing his name officially.
"It's a joy to be free," Dupree, 51, said outside court.
Dupree has served more years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit than anyone else in the state who was later exonerated by DNA evidence. Only two other people exonerated by DNA have spent more time in prison in the entire country, the Innocence Project said. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted prisoners because of DNA testing since 2001, more than any other state.
Dupree told CNN after becoming a free man that he had "mixed emotions" about the hearing considering how long he had been incarcerated.
"I must admit there is a bit of anger, but there is also joy, and the joy overrides the anger," he told CNN. "I'm just so overwhelmed with the joy of being free."
The judge's decision followed comments from Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who said the DNA testing shows Dupree "did not commit this crime."
Dupree is trying not to be too angry, despite having 30 years of his life taken away.
"I think that could have happened to anyone," he told CNN. "It's just unfortunate that it happened to me. The system needs to be corrected somehow."
That system he refers to includes Dallas specifically, where a record 21 people have been exonerated on DNA evidence, and Texas as a whole.
"Cornelius Dupree spent the prime of his life behind bars because of mistaken identification that probably would have been avoided if the best practices now used in Dallas had been employed,” Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said in a press release. "Let us never forget that, as in the heartbreaking case of Cornelius Dupree, a staggering 75% of wrongful convictions of people later cleared by DNA evidence resulted from misidentifications.”
Nina Morrison, senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project, told CNN "an enormous number" of the wrongly accused people convicted in Dallas and around the country were convicted on the basis of mistaken witness identification.
But she said that big improvements in those procedures have been made "so that what happened to Mr. Dupree doesn't happen to anyone else."
Morrison attributed Dupree's exoneration also to the work of the district attorney who has been examining previous convictions closely - and to Dallas County's saving of evidence.
"Dallas has been a leader in saving evidence," she said, noting that even though the policy was evidence had to be saved from cases from 1981 and later, evidence from Dupree's case in 1979 still existed.
"So it was something of a small miracle" that it was preserved, she said.
Watkins, the district attorney, said there were really no standards in place about how to keep evidence, but when he came into office he made it his job to do whatever he could to "not just to seek convictions but to seek justice."
"We created a unit that specifically looked at claims of innocence," he said. "And unfortunately it shows people who made those claims were truly innocent."
Watkins works with Morrison and others at the Innocence Project now, hoping to right wrongs from the past, and bring trust back to a system that has been brought into question.
"It gives us credibility now," he said. "[Residents] actually believe in what we're doing, that we're here not just to seek convictions but to seek justice and seek the truth."
Dupree was paroled six months ago after DNA tests results came back. He was declared innocent on Monday, the Innocence Project said.
Dupree was accused of being one of two men who forced a 26-year-old woman and another male into a car at gunpoint in 1979, forcing them to drive the car and robbing them in the process, according to court documents. The two men also were accused of raping the female, court documents said. But, prosecutors did not pursue rape charges in the case because it would not result in additional jail time, according to the Innocence Project.
The female victim initially identified Dupree from a photo line-up, but the male was unable to do so, according to court documents. At trial, however, both victims said Dupree and his co-defendant Anthony Massingill were the ones who committed the crime. They were convicted, and Dupree was sentenced to 75 years. Massingill, who is also serving time for a separate rape charge, is expected to also have his conviction set aside, the Innocence Project said.
Dupree has been fighting for his innocence since the day he was arrested, and for years following his conviction claiming he was mistakenly identified as the suspect. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.
“Mistaken identification has always plagued the criminal justice system, but great strides have been made in the last three decades to understand the problem and come up with fixes like those being considered by the state Legislature that help minimize wrongful convictions,” Morrison said in a press release. “We hope state lawmakers take note of the terrible miscarriage of justice suffered by Cornelius. When the wrong person is convicted of a crime, the real perpetrator goes free, harming everyone.”
