Celebrities Support Convicted Killer
The upcoming execution of a man who says he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer has drawn international attention.
Courts have refused to allow death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis to present new evidence, even though seven of nine prosecution witnesses who implicated him have renounced much of their testimony, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Davis was convicted of killing Savannah, Ga., policeman Mark Allen MacPhail in a 1989 shooting outside a Greyhound bus station. He is seeking clemency before the state parole board.
Davis spoke to reporters yesterday in a conference call arranged by Amnesty International. “I think it’s a sad day in Georgia … that they are willing to try and kill an innocent man and don’t even want to hear the new facts of the case,” he said.
Among those who want to halt the execution, scheduled for next week, are Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, entertainer Harry Belafonte and M.A.S.H. actor Mike Farrell.
