The Killing of Troy Davis
If the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has its way, Troy Anthony Davis will be killed by lethal injection at 7 pmon September 21. His body will be carried out of the maximum-security prison in Jackson, the word “homicide” printed on his death certificate—the thirty-fourth US prisoner put to death this year.
The killing of Troy Davis would mark a devastating end to a case that inspired a global mobilization against the death penalty. Davis, 42, has faced execution four times in the past four years for a 1989 murder in Savannah, despite serious doubts about his guilt. His conviction hinged on nine witnesses—no physical evidence linked him to the crime—seven of whom later recanted their testimony. Some described being coerced by police. Others point to a different man—the eighth witness, who first implicated Davis—as the real killer. “If I knew then what I know now,” juror Brenda Forrest said in 2009, “Troy Davis would not be on death row.”
Forrest was one of several people who met with members of the pardons board on September 19 to plead for Davis’s life. Others