House Judiciary Committee Members Send Emergency Letter to Georgia State Parole Board

Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 

Contact: Matthew Morgan  (Conyers) – 202-226-5543

              David Dailey (Scott) – 202-225-8351

              Andrew Phelan (Johnson) – 404-593-9126

House Judiciary Committee Members Send Emergency Letter to Georgia State Parole Board

Letter Urges Reconsideration of Clemency Hearing before 7 p.m. Deadline

(WASHINGTON) –  Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and House Judiciary Committee Member Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) wrote a letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles urging them to reconsider the decision to conclude Troy Davis’ death penalty clemency hearing.  Mr. Davis’ defense team was unable to finish presenting evidence in support of his request for clemency.  Specifically, Mr. Davis’ defense team wished to present the testimony of an expert on eyewitness identifications, a critical aspect of Mr. Davis’ request which turned on the fact that several eye witnesses at his trial had since recanted their testimony.

“Since 1973, more than 135 individuals on death row have been exonerated based on their innocence.” Conyers said.  “There is overwhelming evidence that casts doubt on Troy Davis’s conviction.  Before Mr. Davis is executed, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles should consider re-opening Mr. Davis’ clemency hearing because the defense team was unable to present all evidence establishing his innocence.”

“Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the burden is on the defendant to prove actual innocence by 'clear and convincing evidence,'” Scott said.  “This standard is more stringent than preponderance of the evidence and so a defendant demonstrating that he is probably innocent will not meet this burden. Lack of evidence of guilt is not affirmative evidence of innocence.  Despite the fact that Troy Davis demonstrated that the evidence against him left substantial reasonable doubt of his guilt, the District Court found that he was unable to prove with clear and convincing evidence that a jury would not convict him, based on the available evidence.  Similarly, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles did not find the evidence compelling enough to grant clemency, even though they did not hear all of the evidence.  There is something fundamentally wrong with our system when someone may be put to death when the evidence we have available today casts serious doubt about his guilt."

“As a criminal defense attorney, judge and member of the House Judiciary Committee, it disturbs me to my core that an unnecessary and unjust killing may take place,” Johnson said.  “If we execute a man despite new evidence that casts doubt on his guilt, it shakes the public’s faith in the integrity of justice in Georgia.”

Previously, Representatives Conyers,  Scott, and Johnson wrote Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm urging him to drop the death warrant against Mr. Davis and support his appeal for clemency in light of the substantial doubt surrounding his guilt.  A copy of this letter can be found at the following link:http://democrats.judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/JudMembers4Davis110916.pdf   

The letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles  is attached as a pdf and follows below.

Chairman James E. Donald

Georgia State Board of Pardons & Paroles

2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE

Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower

Atlanta, Georgia 30334

RE: Troy Anthony Davis Pending Execution Scheduled for September 21, 2011

Dear Chairman Donald and Members of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles:

We are writing to urge you to reconsider your decision to conclude Troy Davis’ clemency hearing on September 19, 2011.  It is our understanding that Mr. Davis’ defense team was unable to finish presenting its evidence in support his request for clemency.

We understand that, due to time constraints, the Board was unable to hear from Dr. Jennifer E. Dysart, an expert on eyewitness identifications.  We attach the letter written by the Innocence Project, which elaborates the myriad reasons that Dr. Dysart’s testimony is critical.  As you are well aware, the only evidence linking Mr. Davis to the crime is eyewitness testimony.  Given the gravitas of the task with which you were charged, and what the research tells us about this type of evidence, we urge you to give new consideration to concluding Mr. Davis’ hearing without hearing from this critical expert.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member

               

Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

                               

Hank Johnson, Member

U.S. House Judiciary Members Letter Regarding Troy Anthony Davis Execution Scheduled September 21, 2011

Anti-Abortion Georgia Lawmaker Proposes Law That Would Criminalize Miscarriages

First Posted: 02/23/11 05:22 PM Updated: 02/23/11 05:25 PM

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Are lawmakers from the "women are chattel" set having some sort of nation-wide competition to see who can get the most sick-minded anti-abortion law enacted? Sure seems that way! Last week, a public outcry forced South Dakota lawmakers toshelve a bill that opened the possibility that abortion providers would be endangered by people who believed that killing them was a justifiable homicide. Today comes word that Georgia state Representative Bobby Franklin is shopping a bill that wouldn't just make abortion illegal in Georgia, it would criminalize miscarriages to boot.

Jen Phillips of Mother Jones -- which has of late been America's premier harbinger of this sort of cockamamie legislation -- has the details of a law that she terms "the apex...of woman-hating craziness":

I doubt that a bill that makes a legal medical procedure liable for the death penalty will pass.

Oh, wait, sorry! Did I forget to mention that thedeath penalty is involved here? My bad. That's precisely the sort of thing that you read about anddo not want to believe it so fervently that, at first, your brain rejects it outright, as if it were some alien tissue grafted onto your medulla oblongata. Here's the relevant portion of the law itself:

'Prenatal murder' means the intentional removal of a fetus from a woman with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus; provided, however, that if a physician makes a medically justified effort to save the lives of both the mother and the fetus and the fetus does not survive, such action shall not be prenatal murder. Such term does not include a naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a 'spontaneous abortion' and popularly as a 'miscarriage' so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event.

(c) The act of prenatal murder is contrary to the health and well-being of the citizens of this state and to the state itself and is illegal in this state in all instances.

(d) Any person committing prenatal murder in this state shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be punished as provided in subsection (d) of Code Section 16-5-1.

And it's subsection (d) of Code Section 16-5-1 that explicitly puts the death penalty on the table.Here's the statute:

TITLE 16. CRIMES AND OFFENSES

CHAPTER 5. CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON

ARTICLE 1. HOMICIDE

O.C.G.A. § 16-5-1 (2006)

§ 16-5-1. Murder; felony murder

(a) A person commits the offense of murder when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death of another human being.

(b) Express malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to take the life of another human being which is manifested by external circumstances capable of proof. Malice shall be implied where no considerable provocation appears and where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.

(c) A person also commits the offense of murder when, in the commission of a felony, he causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice.

(d) A person convicted of the offense of murder shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life.

Okay, let's go back to Phillips:

The bill, however, shows an astonishing lack of concern for women's health and well-being. Under Rep. Franklin's bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was "no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" of their miscarriage. There is no clarification of what "human involvement" means, and this is hugely problematic as medical doctors do not know exactly what causes miscarriages. Miscarriages are estimated to terminate up to a quarter of all pregnancies and the Mayo Clinic says that "the actual number is probably much higher because many miscarriages occur so early in pregnancy that a woman doesn't even know she's pregnant. Most miscarriages occur because the fetus isn't developing normally."

As Phillips points out, the law also basically radically redefines personhood back to the zygote stage. So remember, in America, the optimal way of exercising your legal rights as a "person," it is best that you go straight from the womb to being a multimillion dollar, rent-seeking corporation.

(Just to review, the way this game is played is that a legislator will conceive of an absolutely insane anti-woman law, stoke outrage, then make a big show of relenting on the crazy part of the law in order to get what they want -- making abortion illegal -- enacted. They will then aver that this is the result of "negotiations" in which "all sides" have been "heard out" resulting in a "compromise.")