The Final Appeal of Troy Davis

The defense of American Troy Davis, a symbol of the fight against the death penalty, presented on Wednesday a final appeal to stop his execution, scheduled for the evening of Sept. 21, 2011, in spite of doubts about his guilt and intense pressure from abroad.

Troy Davis “respectfully requests that this Court enter a stay of execution,” says a court document from the state of Georgia, where the application was filed, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

Sentenced to death in 1991 for murder of a white police officer, Troy Davis, 42, will be administered a lethal injection at 7 p.m. at a prison in Jackson, Georgia, in the presence of the widow and children of the victim.

Mr. Davis “challenges the constitutionality of sentence of death based on newly available evidence,” said the court document by attorney Brian Kammer, citing “false testimony” of the medical examiner who autopsied the body of the police officer.

The U.S. court on Tuesday refused to pardon Troy Davis, who addressed his supporters in writing from death row, where he has been kept for 20 years, stating that the “fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me.”

“There are so many more Troy Davises. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me,” wrote the inmate, who has always maintained his innocence, in a message broadcast by the American branch of Amnesty International on its Facebook page.

On Tuesday, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles said it had “refused clemency.”

The meeting of this committee in Atlanta, the state capital, was considered the last chance for the condemned man to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, as potential appeals to local courts or the Supreme Court, according to experts, have little chance of success.

Troy Davis has already escaped three scheduled executions due to multiple appeals.

The decision of the Board of Pardons and Paroles triggered an avalanche of criticism, illustrating the extent of international support the case has received.

Described by his followers as the stereotype of a black man wrongly convicted, Davis has the support of eminent personalities such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and actress Susan Sarandon, as well as those involved in hundreds of demonstrations of support around the world. France on Wednesday called on the prosecutor and authorities in Georgia not to execute him. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “executing a prisoner when there are serious doubts as to his guilt, (the authorities) would be making an irreparable error.” The French Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples also expressed outrage, calling for people to join the rally organized by Amnesty International in Paris.

The powerful American organization for the defense of civil rights, the ACLU, called for “a general strike by prison employees in Georgia.”

The secretary general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, also urged the U.S. to “spare the life” of Troy Davis. “The reason is not only our disagreement over capital punishment but first and foremost the serious doubts which persist about the integrity of the conviction,” Jagland said.

The mother of Mark MacPhail, the police officer killed in 1989 in the city of Savannah, however, welcomed the decision of the Board of Pardons Tuesday. “That’s what we wanted,” said Anneliese MacPhail on CNN.

At the trial, nine witnesses named Troy Davis as the perpetrator of the shooting but the murder weapon was never found, and no fingerprints or DNA were ever recovered. Since then, seven witnesses have recanted.