The Supreme Court justices have refused to give Troy Davis a hearing. Since Davis was convicted of killing an off-duty police officer, seven of the nine eyewitnesses who testified at trial have recanted their testimony. Two people who did not testify at trial now report that another man has confessed to the murder.
None of this made any impression on the the Supreme Court.
Did the court refuse to call for a hearing because the initial trial was considered fair and thorough, or do a majority of justices fear that public confidence in the justice system will erode further if the ambiguity of the Davis case is revealed?
The big question now is whether the state of Georgia will be able to execute Troy Davis before his lawyers have a chance to get an appeal before another court. The question could be moot: now that the Supreme Court has refused the request for a hearing it will be difficult to get a different ruling from a lower court.
The Davis case shows that the legal system is more concerned with proper procedure than with issues of guilt and innocence. The system frowns on witnesses who change their minds and not even the kind of massive shift we have witnessed in the Davis case can overcome this predisposition.
Is it okay to execute a man who may be innocent? This is not a question the justice system understands.
The best initial coverage came from CNN.
Since then, CBS has published an article that frames the Davis case as the final and bizarre conclusion of the anti-appeals movement. The bar in Georgia is now set so high, attorney Andrew Cohen writes, that no case could possibly meet it. According to Cohen, the Supreme non-decision “virtually guarantees that Davis will be executed despite the grave doubts about his guilt. There will be no evaluation of the Eighth Amendment in these circumstances; no considered review of the new Georgia rule; no ardent discussion between Justices Scalia and Stevens about when, if ever, a defendant like Davis can ever get that meaningful new look from the courts.”
The most telling quote appears in the New York Times piece. “Georgia is willing to risk the credibility of its whole death penalty system in carrying out this one very questionable execution,” said Steven B. Bright, a professor at Yale Law School. “The death penalty should really only be enforced in cases where there is no question about guilt, and that just cannot be said about this case.”
I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt this story will raise more than a ripple of interest from the media.
Friends of Justice 
This is truly awful. It is something out of Kafka.
How could we countenance a system that carries a man forward to an execution knowing that the basis for his conviction has been almost completed invalidated? It does seem that the system of “justice” carries only about the sanctity of the process, not justice. I had not thought that even the Southern states would knowingly execute an innocent person, but I was wrong.
I do not think that we should be surprised. The “justice” system is tenacious once it has hold of its prey.
It is a fact that any level of error exposed in the justice system is unacceptable. The pretense of infallibility must be maintained at all costs. Also the kinds of evidence tampering used to convict Troy Davis is standard operating procedure and essential to the efficient working of the system, and itself requires protection.
Finally, most requirements of justice are met when a suitable scape goat who has not actually performed the actions of the crime is convicted. In the case of a crime committed by a member of a marginalized group, all members of that group collectively are considered to be responsible, therefore guilty and therefore deserving of punishment. In some senses a transparent “wrongful” conviction may be a good thing as it sends a message to the members of the group that they are powerless besides the majesty of the law which protects the true (ie white) citizens of the state.
The justice system, local and appeals courts, the Supreme Court, prosecutors, police tampering are probably rightly criticized in this matter. Just as importantly, individual citizens who knowingly lie and juries who convict despite reasonable doubt are just as wrong and deserving of criticism because “upstanding citizens’ automatically have the public trust when they swear an oath of truth or to act in an unbiased manner in a court of law. Automatic confidence in “upstanding” individuals means when they choose to lie or disregard the consequences of dishonest actions, there are no “do overs”. A possibly innocent life may be the cost for how lightly those who were extended the public trust took this responsibility. Had these people acted responsibly this matter would not have made it to the level of Supreme Court. I hope the ones who condemed this man through their dishonesty pay a cost as well, guilty conscious and all.