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Troy Anthony Davis, a black man, was sentenced to death for the shooting murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a white police officer.  At the time MacPhail, 27, was working off-duty as a security guard for a Greyhound bus station.  A homeless man, Larry Young, was being harassed by an assailant for the can of beer that Young held in a paper sack.  A crowd of bystanders, some of whom spilled out a pool hall, followed the fight as it progressed up Oglethorpe Ave. toward the bus station.  The assailant then pulled a pistol out of his pants and used it beat Young on the head.  Fearing for his life Young yelled for someone to call the police, and Officer MacPhail responded.  He was shot twice and died.

At trial Young identified Davis as the man who both assaulted him and murdered MacPhail.  Young has since recanted.  "After I was assaulted that night … some police officers grabbed me and threw me down on the hood of the police car and handcuffed me.  They treated me like a criminal; like I was the one who killed the officer … They made it clear that we weren't leaving until I told them what they wanted to hear.  They suggested answers and I would give them what they wanted.  They put typed papers in my face and told me to sign them.  I did sign them without reading them."

There was no physical evidence against Davis and the murder weapon has never been found.  The case against him depended entirely on the testimony of nine prosecution witnesses.  Since the trial seven of the nine witnesses, including Young, have recanted their testimony.  Many of the witnesses cited police pressure as the reason for their false trial testimony.

Davis said he was one of the bystanders who came out of the pool hall and watched the assailant torment Young.  He stated he left after the assailant threatened to shoot Young and he never looked back.  He also stated he did not have a gun and that the assailant was one of the remaining prosecution witnesses, Sylvester Coles.  Coles was known as a neighborhood bully.  Davis's appeals lawyers could not locate the other remaining witness.  Georgia planned to execute Davis on July 17, 2007, but on July 16 he was granted a 90-day stay of execution.  Davis's attorneys say they have affidavits from three new witnesses showing that Coles was the shooter.  (www.troyanthonydavis.org)  [7/07]

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