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DeKalb congressmen ask U.S. attorney general to take action in Davis case
by Nigel Roberts
DeKalb’s congressional delegates joined other members of the Congressional Black Caucus in a letter asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to use his office and influence to halt the execution of Troy Davis, a man convicted of killing a Savannah policeman in 1989.
“A wealth of newly discovered evidence has come to light since Mr. Davis’ trial in 1991 that strongly suggests that he is innocent,” stated the letter dated May 22, spearheaded by Rep. John Lewis (D – District 5).
Lewis and others pointed to the “extensive pattern of recanted testimony” from witnesses who testified against Davis at his trial. All but two of the witnesses have recanted, and some of the witnesses now say that police investigators coerced their testimony against Davis.
Davis has always maintained that he’s innocent. At the trial, prosecutors did not present any physical evidence or a murder weapon. In fact, the state’s case against Davis rested mainly on witness testimony, which Davis’ supporters described as containing inconsistencies.
In the letter to Holder, the 24 signers suggested that prosecutors take a closer look at one of the two witnesses who has not recanted: Sylvester “Red” Coles. Davis’ defense team and close observers of the case say that Coles should be the principal alternative suspect. According to the letter, “nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Coles” as the killer.
Judge Rosemary Barkett of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the three-judge panel that heard Davis’ appeal, found that “police directed all of their energy towards building a case against Davis, failing to investigate the possibility that the [informant] was the actual murderer,” the letter stated. It added that Barkett noted that investigators never showed the alternative suspect’s picture to eyewitnesses, and several new witnesses have sworn that Coles confessed to the killing since Davis’ trial.
The Black Caucus members highlighted the racial environment surrounding Davis’ arrest and trial to the attorney general: “The tragic death of a White Savannah police officer by one of two Black men brought the ire and rage of a city that still bore the scars of segregation, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement.”
They stated that the purpose of their letter was not to excuse a murder but “to battle the notion that the Black man is monolithic or interchangeable in the criminal justice system.” An innocent man, they said, should not be executed “to placate some generic cry for quick justice through abbreviated investigation.”
Both Lewis and Rep. Hank Johnson (D – District 4) have been involved in the Davis case for nearly two years. Johnson, a former defense attorney, successfully defended a death row inmate. As an attorney and former judge, Johnson said he has taken an interest in this case from both a legal and human rights perspective.
In a 2007 letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, Johnson wrote: “Because of a number of well-documented problems with the case and the inability to have a proper appeal through the federal system, Mr. Davis is due to be executed amid innumerable doubts and omissions.”
At a 2007 parole hearing, Lewis told the board that he didn’t know Davis personally and didn’t know with absolute certainty that Davis is not guilty of the charges against him. “But I do know that nobody should be put to death based on the evidence we now have in this case…I am, frankly, shocked to think that we could execute anyone under these circumstances,” Lewis stated.
With Davis making his final appeal from death row for the court to consider new evidence, the caucus members asked Holder to “take any action, open any investigation or simply use the persuasion of your office to ensure that a grave injustice is not done in Georgia.”
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