Ace of Spades HQ

September 21, 2011

Troy Davis Executed
— Ace

This blog post (and its sequels) details a more complicated case than Ann Coulter's column suggested.

The first thing is that the "Van full of Air Force witnesses" really did not see the shooter's face. They could identify him, they say, based on his clothing.

Clothing's important here. In the parking lot was a White Shirt and a Yellow Shirt. Everyone agrees the White Shirt shot and murdered Officer McPhail.

It also seems established that between one Sylvester Coles and one Troy Davis, one was wearing the Yellow Shirt (and therefore is innocent of the murder) and one was wearing the White Shirt (and therefore is guilty of the murder).

Who's who? Who is White Shirt, and guilty of a capital offense, and who is Yellow Shirt, and not guilty?

There is testimony that Coles was wearing the Yellow Shirt, and so is innocent, and Davis was wearing the White Shirt, and so is guilty. Unfortunately that testimony comes from Coles' sister, and even more unfortunately, she spins an odd tale of the men switching shirts.

She claims that her brother wore a yellow shirt as he ran back to her house, and swapped it for a red shirt she gave him. She claims that Davis, on the other hand, ran back to her house shirtless (implication: he took off the white shirt of the murderer), and, for reasons unclear, put on Coles' nasty sweaty yellow shirt for a few moments, before pulling it back off and throwing it back on the porch.

This testimony is all a bit weird, and one reasonable inference is that the sister is making up a story that turns her guilty brother, Coles -- the actual White Shirt killer -- into the innocent Yellow Shirt bystander, and seems to maybe be covering for inconsistencies in her story (perhaps earlier saying that Davis was wearing the yellow shirt, which would make Davis innocent and her brother guilty) by spinning a tale of shirts briefly worn and then discarded.

On the other hand, the blog dismisses eyewitness identifications of Davis as the killer. Coles and Davis (or at least White Shirt and Yellow Shirt) accosted and pistol-whipped a homeless man while he was drinking beer; it was the shouts of this homeless man that brought Officer MacPhail running over.

The homeless man says he didn't remember anything, but the police intimidated him into identifying Davis as the killer. That's one of the recantations.

But his girlfriend did in fact pick Davis out of a photo array. On the second try:

Ms. Murray was shown a photo array the night of the shooting, but could not identify the gunman. Several days later, the police showed her a second photo array, from which she identified Mr. Davis as the man who hit Mr. Young and shot the officer.

Coulter mentions the man who doesn't fully retract his testimony -- Darrell Collins continues to say it was Troy Davis wearing the White Shirt, which, when added to the other eyewitnesses (who agree White Shirt killed him), would seem to indicate Davis did shoot Officer MacPhail.

Although he says Davis was wearing the White Shirt, he says he was coerced by police into implicating Davis in an earlier shooting, and now says that despite being within ten feet of Davis when the shots were fired, he didn't see anything.

He also alleges that Coles was the one who struck the homeless man (the initial assault that brought MacPhail running to the scene)...

They told me that I would go to jail for a long time and I would be lucky if I ever got out, especially because a police officer got killedÂ… I didnÂ’t want to go to jail because I didnÂ’t do nothing wrong. I was only sixteen and was so scared of going to jail. They kept saying thatÂ…[Troy] had messed with that man up at Burger King and killed that officer. I told them that it was Red and not Troy who was messing with that man, but they didnÂ’t want to hear thatÂ…

That last bit is somewhat interesting, because others say the man who "messed" with the homeless man was also the man who shot the cop.

I don't know. It's a lot more convoluted and messy than I first thought. And in this situation -- a cop murdered sadistically by a gun-wielding member of a two-man wolfpack -- I can imagine cops making a lot of threats to get a conviction.

It's the classic two-man murder, one is guilty, and one is actually innocent (except for things that aren't capital offenses, like palling around with killers).

And which is which?

Coles rushed to the police station the next morning to implicate Davis in the murder.

Does that mean Coles was actually innocent?

Or does that mean Coles was smart enough to realize that someone was going to hang for this, and better to get the police focused on Davis?

If you like CSI, or Law & Order, especially those ambiguous-ending episodes, the whole murky mess is worth a read.

AP: A balanced piece, from AP.

Thanks to robrr.

Posted by: Ace at 07:25 PM | Comments (203)
Post contains 865 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Has Davis' cork been popped?

Posted by: Arbalest at September 21, 2011 07:29 PM (ox1Nr)

2 This fuckwad brutally killed Officer McPhail in cold blood. He has been aborted.

Posted by: Tommygun at September 21, 2011 07:30 PM (T2ydq)

3 Well, all of that amounts to a convalited Charles Johnson post.

Posted by: mghorning at September 21, 2011 07:30 PM (FmCe7)

4 Over the 20 years of appeals, no judge ever saw fit to overturn the sentence or the conviction. I think we probably did o.k. on this one.

Posted by: Andy at September 21, 2011 07:32 PM (z6jMn)

5 what a shame...pal around with thugs and murderers and end get executed. my heart bleeds. how will our civilization survive the loss? big damn deal.

Posted by: CitizenOfTheRepublic at September 21, 2011 07:32 PM (uqY5u)

6 The man's dead. Like it or not, the system worked as intended.

If the White Shirt / Yellow Shirt issue were such a dealbreaker, it would certainly have been reviewed at the evidentiary re-hearing. And so it was. And the hearing upheld his conviction.

Posted by: Lou at September 21, 2011 07:32 PM (0F3ej)

7 All this was still not good enough for even one court to stay the execution. So yeah. Plus, there's more evidence besides witnesses and clothing.

Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 07:33 PM (EPcuy)

wait wait wait, the homeless man had a girlfriend?

God I feel terrible about myself

Posted by: Ben at September 21, 2011 07:33 PM (tEGzl)

9 Chill the chimp already.

Posted by: Gerbil Malodor, the Skin flutist at September 21, 2011 07:33 PM (jn9dd)

Ace,

AP went throught the trial transcripts and the 16 year didn't recant. He said the police intimidated him into testifying on the stand.

According to the AP most of the recants weren't recants and the stuff they said in the new afidavit was stuff the jury had already heard.

I posted the AP article on the other thread.

Posted by: robtr at September 21, 2011 07:35 PM (MtwBb)

11 robtr, I didn't see that, I'll check.

Posted by: ace at September 21, 2011 07:36 PM (nj1bB)

12 God I have too many liberals on Facebook...ugh.

Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 07:37 PM (EPcuy)

13 To be honest I'm sort of in the "You were there, we can't tell you from your buddy, suck it" camp. In cases like that, it is often mostly impossible to say with 100% surety whether it was this one or the other one. As a formal matter, that means you're always supposed to acquit in such cases. As a let's-be-real matter, I think a lot of juries just decide there is enough guilt between them and convict.

Posted by: ace at September 21, 2011 07:38 PM (nj1bB)

14 The fact is, these people are working from the premise that the death penalty is wrong. That's the default position, so anything that throws aspects of the case into doubt automatically confirms their beliefs. Is any death penalty case slam-dunk? No.

Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 07:41 PM (EPcuy)

15 Two guys beat the shit outta some hobo with a gun, then one of the two miscreants shoots and kills a cop. One of the miscreants ends up getting put down like an old pound puppy. Failing to even get a tingle on my Give-A-Shit meter

Posted by: Sparky at September 21, 2011 07:41 PM (0F6Sg)

16 The only way to be certain is to kill them both.

Posted by: Occam's Strop at September 21, 2011 07:42 PM (X1d/W)

17 Not losing any sleep over this execution. Let the libs fret and cry over it. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Posted by: mpfa, TPT at September 21, 2011 07:42 PM (3TjSM)

18 And the truth is that we USED to deal with this via the Felony Murder rule (if you are engaged in a felony, any murder perpetrated by a coconspirator is chargeable to you). But the Supreme Court claims we can't impose the death penalty in felony murder cases, that is, we can only sentence the actual triggerman to death, which is what creates this hard-to-parse situation.

Posted by: ace at September 21, 2011 07:42 PM (nj1bB)

19 14 Is any death penalty case slam-dunk? No. Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 11:41 PM (EPcuy) I don't know about that. The guy who just got executed in Texas was as close to a slam-dunk I've ever seen.

Posted by: Joejm65 at September 21, 2011 07:43 PM (UZuc4)

20 A delayed execution is probably not a particularly fun time for the hopeful eventual executee. So there's that also. Just sayin'.

Posted by: Tommygun at September 21, 2011 07:44 PM (T2ydq)

21 Has there been any case where is was shown that an innocent man was executed? Just one. No?

Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 07:44 PM (EPcuy)

22 Moral of the story under any plausible scenario: don't kill people or hang around with people who do.

Posted by: Andy at September 21, 2011 07:44 PM (z6jMn)

ace,

here is the AP link.

http://tinyurl.com/4xoxwfg

Posted by: robtr at September 21, 2011 07:44 PM (MtwBb)

24 So, if the anti-death penalty people are right, and we are convicting innocent people left and right, why do they only seem to care about death penalty cases where there is a much higher standard of evidence to begin with?

For every nominal innocent there are many, many more innocents serving life, or 20 years.

Hell, why weren't these same people going nuts when the government blamed Steven Hatfill for the anthrax mailings and tried him in the court of public opinion?

Posted by: 18-1 at September 21, 2011 07:45 PM (FBr/C)

Were they Pistol Whipping the Hobo, or were they Tenderizing the Hobo?

Posted by: garrett at September 21, 2011 07:45 PM (X1d/W)

26 Coulter was right. Ace, don't be an enabler.

Posted by: Chris R, red in NY-9 at September 21, 2011 07:45 PM (hGTfi)

27 But the Supreme Court claims we can't impose the death penalty in felony murder cases, that is, we can only sentence the actual triggerman to death, which is what creates this hard-to-parse situation.

Posted by: ace at September 21, 2011 11:42 PM (nj1bB)

What was the specific decision where our robed masters opined on this?

Posted by: 18-1 at September 21, 2011 07:46 PM (FBr/C)

Moral of the story under any plausible scenario: don't kill people or hang around with people who do.

The more you know.

Posted by: Ben at September 21, 2011 07:46 PM (tEGzl)

29 Ban jn9dd

Posted by: Anony at September 21, 2011 07:46 PM (Yigvc)

30 they're both guilty of capital murder via the felony murder rule (attempted murder or battery of the homeless guy) irrespective of who actually pulled the trigger.

Posted by: D. Hopper Badger at September 21, 2011 07:46 PM (kBWjM)

31 Hell, why weren't these same people going nuts when the government blamed Steven Hatfill for the anthrax mailings and tried him in the court of public opinion?

Posted by: 18-1 at September 21, 2011 11:45 PM (FBr/C)

They are cop killer enthusiasts, they only get excited when the victim was a cop.

Posted by: robtr at September 21, 2011 07:46 PM (MtwBb)

I feel like this is a dead issue.

And on that note, time for bed

Posted by: Ben at September 21, 2011 07:50 PM (tEGzl)

33 13 To be honest I'm sort of in the "You were there, we can't tell you from your buddy, suck it" camp.

In cases like that, it is often mostly impossible to say with 100% surety whether it was this one or the other one. As a formal matter, that means you're always supposed to acquit in such cases.

As a let's-be-real matter, I think a lot of juries just decide there is enough guilt between them and convict.

Posted by: ace at September 21, 2011 11:38 PM (nj1bB)

Yeah, pretty much. If they got it backwards, Coles should be fried, but being an accessory to the killing spree, fleeing the scene of the crime, etc. makes the moral case against both of them pretty much equal even if the law doesn't say so.

Most of us won't pour through trial transcripts and so we rely on these news reports to lay out the case for us. And every. single. time. with these last-minute appeals, they are swiss cheese lies put out by defense lawyers or anti-death-penalty advocates.

I'd have sympathy for the anti-death-penalty advocates if once -- just once -- they'd be honest about their cases instead of lying, omitting and misrepresenting the facts.

There is a dog that didn't bark here in that all the sympathetic stories leave a lot out of this case. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who lie to me.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 07:52 PM (73tyQ)

34 So, on the one hand, our legal system is infallible enough so that Holder wants to try KSM in a civilian court. On the other, we must do away with the death penalty because of the obvious limitations of our legal system.

Liberalism really is a mental disorder.

Posted by: Rich C at September 21, 2011 07:53 PM (aXpAb)

35 The man had 20 years and some outstanding legal support including the infamous Barry Scheck and his entire Innocence Project working on his behalf. His case was reviewed repeatedly by the legal and executive system of the state of Georgia and ultimately the United States Supreme Court and none found a reason to overturn the decision of a trial by a jury of his peers for the torture and execution of a policeman. I hope the victims family has some peace at last.

Posted by: JackStraw at September 21, 2011 07:55 PM (TMB3S)

36 Good article about this case at Red State. Just another perspective... http://tiny.cc/l1xlj

Posted by: Joejm65 at September 21, 2011 07:56 PM (UZuc4)

37 Mysterious mystery...

Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 08:02 PM (EPcuy)

38 If he were white it probably would not have made the Paper. I'm with Captain Hate, too bad we can't kill him twice for pulling this mayrter stuff.

Posted by: Oldsailor's poet at September 21, 2011 08:03 PM (ZDUD4)

39 Debate audience: "Yea!"

Posted by: cherry π at September 21, 2011 08:04 PM (OhYCU)

40 U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr.'s ruling allowing the state to use two Georgia Bureau of Investigation reports on a pair of blood-stained black shorts seized from Davis' mother's home comes days before he is to begin hearings Wednesday to allow Davis' lawyers to try and show that evidence not available at his 1991 trial would have convinced a jury to acquit him.

One slight problem with this though....

(that may take forever to load -- so here's the relevant part) (foonote 97 or page 99 of the pdf)

The State introduced evidence regarding Mr. Davis's "bloody"
shorts. (See Resp. Ex. 67.) However, even the State conceded
that this evidence lacked any probative value of guilt,
submitting it only to show what the Board of Pardons and Paroles
had before it. (Evidentiary Hearing Transcript at 468-69.)
Indeed, there was insufficient DNA to determine who the blood
belonged to, so the shorts in no way linked Mr. Davis to the
murder of Officer MacPhail. The blood could have belonged to
Mr. Davis, Mr. Larry Young, Officer MacPhail, or even have
gotten onto the shorts entirely apart from the events of that
night. Moreover, it is not even clear that the substance was
blood.

Posted by: lu at September 21, 2011 08:04 PM (CjJhm)

41 try this

Posted by: cherry π at September 21, 2011 08:04 PM (OhYCU)

42 Barbaric, though not as bad as the crime he was convicted of. Righties need to take a hint from libertarians and keep the government from executing its citizens. Fucking barbaric.

Posted by: Jordan at September 21, 2011 08:07 PM (4z6KA)

43 Yes, a bunch of bloggers are going to do what a whole bunch of judges and 22 years of court battles could not do: blow this case wiiiiiiiide open. Right.

Posted by: Joffen at September 21, 2011 08:07 PM (EPcuy)

44 Hang em High

Posted by: Zakn at September 21, 2011 08:08 PM (7F9i5)

45 "8 wait wait wait, the homeless man had a girlfriend? God I feel terrible about myself Posted by: Ben" Aw, Ben, get ahold of the homeless guy. Maybe he can fix you up with his girlfriend's sister.

Posted by: nerdygirl at September 21, 2011 08:12 PM (MEtbb)

46 The blood could have belonged to
Mr. Davis, Mr. Larry Young, Officer MacPhail, or even have
gotten onto the shorts entirely apart from the events of that
night. Moreover, it is not even clear that the substance was
blood.

Yeah. It was ketchup. He was opening one of those packets and it just went everywhere.

Yes, yes, I know, can't be used in court and all that, a man's life hangs in the balance, but as Ace said, if the Felony Murder rule hadn't been changed, this wouldn't be an issue.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 08:13 PM (73tyQ)

47 Here's my take on the capital punishment in general. While, on the whole I support it, how many people would willingly forfeit their lives to make a point if an executed prisoner were later found to actually be innocent? Yeah, I didn't think so. What I'm not hearing from the left is a peep about innocents being executed since DNA testing became routine. However, let's face it, there are corrupt cops and prosecutors, and they should be executed too if it is determined that they played a role in causing an innocent person to be killed.

Posted by: SFGoth at September 21, 2011 08:13 PM (g/WYX)

48 43

Fuck you.

I am a barbaric. I don't give a shit what you think. This guy deserved the sentence he got.

Posted by: mpfs, TPT at September 21, 2011 08:14 PM (3TjSM)

49 Should have executed both. Just to make sure.

Posted by: You Betcha at September 21, 2011 08:15 PM (EL+OC)

Who's who? Who is White Shirt, and guilty of a capital offense, and who is Yellow Shirt, and not guilty?

Fuck it, they all look alike.

Posted by: C*ntessa Brewer at September 21, 2011 08:15 PM (QaKuj)

51 Social Justice is a double edged sword bitches

Posted by: Rick Perry at September 21, 2011 08:15 PM (I/MzF)

52 "Fuck you. I am a barbaric. I don't give a shit what you think. This guy deserved the sentence he got." Well, you certainly aren't a grammarian.

Posted by: Jordan at September 21, 2011 08:15 PM (4z6KA)

53 49

I also think the cops who beat Kelly Thomas in Fullerton CA to death deserve what they are going to get too. I'm an equal opportunity barbarian.

Posted by: mpfs, TPT at September 21, 2011 08:16 PM (3TjSM)

54 Is it possible to be a capital punishment agnostic? If it is, I'd like to sign up.

Posted by: Johnny (John E.) at September 21, 2011 08:17 PM (nRTou)

55 Jury: 7 blacks, 5 whites. All said guilty. Case closed.

Posted by: fused at September 21, 2011 08:17 PM (P34gz)

56 Has the ghost of Troy "Homefried" Davis cursed the formatting of this thread?

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 21, 2011 08:17 PM (7dMdC)

57 53 Oh now that hurt you little piece of shit.

Posted by: mpfs, TPT at September 21, 2011 08:17 PM (3TjSM)

58 "47 The blood could have belonged to Mr. Davis, Mr. Larry Young, Officer MacPhail, or even have gotten onto the shorts entirely apart from the events of that night. Moreover, it is not even clear that the substance was blood." Would it be wrong of me to suggest that he might have been menstruating?

Posted by: nerdygirl at September 21, 2011 08:18 PM (MEtbb)

59 Well now he has to answer to God..No defense attorneys and 20 years of appeals there...

Posted by: The terrorist Hobbit formerly known as Donna at September 21, 2011 08:18 PM (5Wl/f)

60 Oh, jesus, Ace! The skeptical juror is an antiDP asshole. Read the god damn findings of facts from the court hearing. Do I have to link it for the 4th time????

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 08:18 PM (IBh7/)

61 Actually, according to "social justice" don't they both deserve to die?

I'm never clear on what "social" justice is.

Of course, I believe the adjective "social" is used to give irony to the noun that follows.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 08:18 PM (73tyQ)

62 62

Amishdude,
Your words...they make me swoon

Jordan thinx ima bad with teh grammer. Whats agrahmcrackerariam. I'm so dumb!

Posted by: mpfs, TPT at September 21, 2011 08:20 PM (3TjSM)

63 I have changed on the death penalty. I'm not against it. The negatives outweigh the positives.

Posted by: MaxMBJ at September 21, 2011 08:21 PM (deaac)

64 It's hard to argue with a recidivism rate of 0%.

Posted by: garrett at September 21, 2011 08:22 PM (X1d/W)

65 "43 Barbaric, though not as bad as the crime he was convicted of. Righties need to take a hint from libertarians and keep the government from executing its citizens. Fucking barbaric. Posted by: Jordan" A former roommate of mine's sister was murdered. In her case, whoever did it was never discovered. But I'll tell you, you don't ever want to know the rage that someone like this goes through. Barbaric? Nope, human nature.

Posted by: nerdygirl at September 21, 2011 08:22 PM (MEtbb)

66 The point was that the 'bloody shorts' evidence wouldn't have necessarily been a smoking gun even if it was admissible due to the lack of DNA.

Posted by: lu at September 21, 2011 08:22 PM (CjJhm)

67 "I'm never clear on what "social" justice is." It's communism.

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 08:25 PM (IBh7/)

68 Barbaric is when you shot someone in cold blood, then stand over him and pump more bullets into his body with a smile.

Muma did that too. His execution can't come fast enough. Justice has been delayed too long.

Posted by: mpfs, TPT at September 21, 2011 08:25 PM (3TjSM)

69 shot = shoot

Damn meds kicking in.

Posted by: mpfs, TPT at September 21, 2011 08:26 PM (3TjSM)

70 Another man executed today, yet strangely he was not mentioned on CNN or MSNBC.

Posted by: cherry π at September 21, 2011 08:26 PM (OhYCU)

71 "62 Actually, according to "social justice" don't they both deserve to die? I'm never clear on what "social" justice is." Easy. "Social Justice" is taking money out of your paycheck and giving it to some chick who dropped out of high school and had 3 children out of wedlock. In other words, "social justice" means you don't expect people, including murderers and criminals, to live with the consequences of their actions.

Posted by: nerdygirl at September 21, 2011 08:27 PM (MEtbb)

72 Â“What we have had is a manufactured appearance of doubt which has taken on the quality of legitimate doubt itself. And all of it is exquisitely unfair. The good news is we live in a civilized society where questions like this are decided based on fact in open and transparent courts of law, and not on street corners.Â”
-- Spencer Lawton (prosecuting attorney)

Posted by: JMS at September 21, 2011 08:27 PM (tNNAe)

73 Damn. My last post had that one ubiquitous error: I typed "not" when I meant "now." What it should have said is, I'm now against the death penalty. Errors. Mistakes. They happen. Just sayin'

Posted by: MaxMBJ at September 21, 2011 08:27 PM (deaac)

74 I can't understand why anyone even wants to discuss this. Some guy had his thirty gazillion appeals and now he's dead. Next.

Posted by: DaMav at September 21, 2011 08:27 PM (QNU76)

75 68 The point was that the 'bloody shorts' evidence wouldn't have necessarily been a smoking gun even if it was admissible due to the lack of DNA.

How do we know it was smoke? How do we know it wasn't fog? It could have been steam. We aren't even sure that it was a gun, even though it was gun-shaped and half-full of bullets.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 08:27 PM (73tyQ)

76 "I'm never clear on what "social" justice is." " This means conservatives die.

Posted by: cherry π at September 21, 2011 08:27 PM (OhYCU)

77 Way OT, but there is that sidebar item about the carbomb in Monroe, MI ... asking wtf the motive for that might be.
Monroe is about 40 miles south of Dearborn, MI (Dearbornistan.) Lot of people just mad mad mad at each other.

Posted by: No need to thank me- I enjoy being helpful at September 21, 2011 08:28 PM (zVHzM)

Sarah Palin 2012

Posted by: Common Man at September 21, 2011 08:29 PM (4VomI)

79 Errors. Mistakes. They happen. Just sayin'

Posted by: MaxMBJ at September 22, 2011 12:27 AM (deaac)

Then death row is the best place. You'll notice that life imprisonment doesn't focus the activists. They're happy to have a man waste his life behind bars because it isn't as sexy. Let's face it, they're going to die anyway.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 08:31 PM (73tyQ)

80 "According to Darrell Collins, who is now recanting everything or claiming not to remember anything, Davis admitted to Collins that Davis had shot MacPhail in the chest and then went back to shoot MacPhail in the head at close range because MacPhail had seen his face Â— hence MacPhailÂ’s blood on DavisÂ’s shorts. Oh, and at the time Collins gave his statement way back in 1989 it was not public knowledge that Officer MacPhail had been shot in the chest and then at close range in the face." -RedState Erickson seems to be wrong about the blood, as a post above illustrates. However, how can the 'confessing unreleased details' be explained?

Posted by: Joejm65 at September 21, 2011 08:32 PM (UZuc4)

81 ... the case that launched a thousand _{^{(who gives a)}}shits

Posted by: Davis of Troy at September 21, 2011 08:32 PM (Jw7jn)

82 Anybody know any good Troy Davis jokes?

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 08:32 PM (IBh7/)

83 From reading the 3-part article by The Skeptical Juror, I'd say that the murderer is the taller of the two (Cole or Davis). Larry Young said it was the guy in the white shirt that pistol-whipped him, AND he identified that guy as around 5' 11'', while the yellow shirt was around 5' 9''. All the other eye witnesses had the shooter between 5' 10" to over 6'. That physical collaboration seems significant. If Davis was the taller one, then they executed the right man, I think.

Posted by: Godzilla at September 21, 2011 08:33 PM (YzFnv)

84 What happens in Troy davis, stays in Troy davis

Posted by: cherry π at September 21, 2011 08:33 PM (OhYCU)

85 You'll notice that life imprisonment doesn't focus the activists. They're happy to have a man waste his life behind bars because it isn't as sexy. Let's face it, they're going to die anyway.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 22, 2011 12:31 AM (73tyQ)

It's living a bare subsistence life on the government dime of boring uselessness; it's what they want for everybody.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 21, 2011 08:33 PM (7dMdC)

86 "Over the 20 years of appeals, no judge ever saw fit to overturn the sentence or the conviction.

I think we probably did o.k. on this one."

How many people get sentences overturned? I'm pretty sure none of the people convicted over the Secret Satanic Child Molestation Daycare Cults did, which means a judge not overturning a sentence isn't indicative of anything.

But, anyway, the guy is at least an accessory to the murder. I don't generally support the death penalty for single murders, but I'm not going to shed any tears for the (former) asshole.

Posted by: Justin at September 21, 2011 08:37 PM (yoAYX)

87 Hey no need , maybe they were practising how to be terrorists. I know that sounds unusual, but maybe they were being concientious, you know, what could go wrong?

Posted by: bigmike at September 21, 2011 08:38 PM (VmHc2)

88 i hope he died in agony

Posted by: navycopjoe aka Palinista Extremo at September 21, 2011 08:39 PM (R7NIt)

89 REM sang a song about how he was innocent. So he must have been guilty.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at September 21, 2011 08:40 PM (i0App)

90 13 To be honest I'm sort of in the "You were there, we can't tell you from your buddy, suck it" camp.

Yeah. First of all, this is why "felony murder" exists. You want to hang with criminal assholes and do crime, then pony up to the cashier. Yes, it's a "convenience of the cops" thing, much like "open container" laws, but it's hard to muster much sympathy.

Beyond reasonable doubt, they got this one right. And if they didn't, if it was actually the other guy? At one time, I would have taken that more seriously than I do now. When I first watched that movie, can't remember the title, which featured Glenn Close and a Magic Negro mother-of-criminal nodding her head through the whole thing, and some mope was on trial for something, and the evil prosecutor said, about the possibility of his innocence for the specific crime charged: "So what? He had a rap sheet as long as my dick." At the time, I went along with the narrative of the movie, and thought "Oh, you bad evil man."

Now? I'm not for convicting the innocent, but I have since acquired more of a sense of the stakes of the battle between civilization and those who prey on it, so I say to the evil prosecutor: you're wrong, because it's your job to get this right. But if it weren't, well, good point.

Posted by: Splunge at September 21, 2011 08:40 PM (2IW5Q)

91 @DLoesch Alec Baldwin unleashed the hounds on Malkin, calling for a Twitter campaign ... of hate.

Michelle Malkin is actually getting threats and such vulgar comments on Twitter. It's hard to believe that people have become so consumed with hate that they take pride in their poison being re-tweeted.

Posted by: Carolyn at September 21, 2011 08:41 PM (CQId4)

92 Davis's family were up to their necks in this bullshit. They washed his clothes and then drove him to Atlanta that night.

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 08:42 PM (IBh7/)

93 95, Malkin is tougher than a $2 steak. I'm sure she'll handle it just fine. Baldwin should be the worried one. He's forrest Gump without the good luck compared to her.

Posted by: Oldsailor's poet at September 21, 2011 08:44 PM (ZDUD4)

94 An example of the venom ...
A "college jr." RT @intellect13: @michellemalkin my foot is gonna stay on yo neck you noddle slurping hoe. goodnight!

Posted by: Carolyn at September 21, 2011 08:44 PM (CQId4)

95 This site won't let me link easily, but look up video interviews of the prosecutor. He comes across very well -- not happy about the death penalty but recognizes that it is necessary.

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 08:45 PM (IBh7/)

96 98 An example of the venom ... A "college jr." RT @intellect13: @michellemalkin my foot is gonna stay on yo neck you noddle slurping hoe. goodnight! Posted by: Carolyn at September 22, 2011 12:44 AM (CQId4) Yeah, I follow Michelle. She's basically getting death threats. Or, people are accusing her of murdering 'an innocent man'. Liberals are assholes. 99% of them never heard of Troy Davis a week ago, but now they know enough about the case to dismiss 20 years worth of appeals decisions and a bitch-slap from the SCOTUS. Meanwhile, they're not saying a peep about the idiot who got executed in Texas today. I guess that one was ok.

Posted by: Joejm65 at September 21, 2011 08:52 PM (UZuc4)

97 Oh, I know she's a tough cookie.
That said, the #$%^ that is being allowed to be spewed at her is draining the last bit of love for my fellow men/women, that I had left.

I have to stop reading it. I've already stopped following numerous people and I didn't have many to begin with.
I wonder if the people that also promote their business under the same screen names, will regret tomorrow, what they are tweeting tonight.

Posted by: Carolyn at September 21, 2011 08:53 PM (CQId4)

98 In a capital case, we should be careful to make certain we have punished the guilty party. I say go ahead and put Coles down as well, that way we are certain we have the right man.

Posted by: Malcolm Tent at September 21, 2011 08:57 PM (4+XnQ)

99 "AP: A balanced piece, from AP." Uh, no. Again, I direct you to read the actual findings of fact and not this crap written by anti DP msm. Of course, you won't.

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 08:59 PM (IBh7/)

100 It's amazing to me how a viciously hateful 9/11 Truther like Alec Baldwin maintains a position of respect in society.

Have you read his Twitter? Baldwin is really, fucking evil. He's open about expressing his total hatred for most Americans. He's a Truther. He wants Bush and Cheney tried for murder. He incites racial threats against Malkin.

It's nuts. And this fucker will host SNL. And be paid millions by NBC.

And yet he daily spews foul-mouthed rage at half the country.

It'd be like if Ann Coulter also starred in a wacky sitcom where she played an uptight women's studies professor.

Except Baldwin is much more personally hateful than what I've seen Coulter say.

Posted by: Clubber Lang at September 21, 2011 09:00 PM (QcFbt)

101 Honesty, I can't be bothered to look into the facts of this case. Leftists lie. This much I know. They have a track record of it that reaches from here to the moon and back. So if the lying leftists are out there screaming about this guy's innocence, and there's an agenda on the table, well then I'm pretty goddamned sure he's fucking guilty. It's that simple. I'm not going to spend all day chasing down their lies. I've seen all I need to from them.

Posted by: Warden at September 21, 2011 09:02 PM (KulgD)

102 "She claims that Davis, on the other hand, ran back to her house shirtless (implication: he took off the white shirt of the murderer), and, for reasons unclear, put on Coles' nasty sweaty yellow shirt for a few moments, before pulling it back off and throwing it back on the porch." Not weird at all. Davis ran to the house, taking off the blood-splattered, eyewitnessed shirt on the way. When he got there, he grabbed the first shirt he saw, so that he wouldn't look like someone who had just thrown away his shirt. But once he got the shirt on, he realized that it was Coles' shirt and thus every bit as tied to the crime scene as his white one, so he took that off, too. "...and seems to maybe be covering for inconsistencies in her story (perhaps earlier saying that Davis was wearing the yellow shirt, which would make Davis innocent and her brother guilty)..." Your phrasing here implies that you haven't read through all her previous testimony to know whether this is an inconsistency or not. Maybe if you had spent 100+ hours studying the evidence and testimony in this case the way the jurors and appellate judges did, you'd come to the same conclusion they did.

Posted by: Fabozz at September 21, 2011 09:05 PM (w+Lhu)

103 Tonight, all leftists are Atticus Finch! Tomorrow, they'll all go back to being Joy Behar......

Posted by: Joejm65 at September 21, 2011 09:06 PM (UZuc4)

104 107, No Shit lol.

Posted by: Oldsailor's poet at September 21, 2011 09:10 PM (ZDUD4)

105 Having so much fun on #RIPTroyDavis! These people are all idiots.

Posted by: Morbius Wilters at September 21, 2011 09:13 PM (CxBWM)

106

I dunno; I've got a friend who's a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County. The classic defense is "some other dude did it". Of course here you're got two dudes. Each said the other dude did it. One of them sure as God made little green apples shot a man twice--once in the chest, then, leaning over, once in the face. I would have told those protesting assholes that we should have executed both of the guys--just to make sure we got the right one.

Posted by: Comanche Voter at September 21, 2011 09:13 PM (3ESDJ)

107 I'm 52 years old and have never felt more like I'm no longer living on planet Earth, than I do right now.

Protesting capital punishment, using death threats.On Twitter, for gawd sake.Twitter accounts linked to their livelihood in some cases.

I can't believe we are members of the same species.

Posted by: Carolyn at September 21, 2011 09:18 PM (CQId4)

108 Well, you certainly aren't a grammarian.

Posted by: Jordan at September 22, 2011 12:15 AM (4z6KA)

Fuck off.

HowÂ’s that grammar?

Posted by: Dumb_Blonde at September 21, 2011 09:19 PM (2ZgUA)

109 Davis, "I face shot a cop and all I got was this Yellow ... errr .... White ... errr ... *RED* shirt. and 'The Needle' ..."

Posted by: Sparky at September 21, 2011 09:22 PM (0F6Sg)

110 Why didn't they invoke the Felony Murder Rule and nail both men?

Sigh.

Posted by: ace tomato at September 21, 2011 09:23 PM (7p/J4)

111 OT/ (sorry) Just saw the Rick perry ad in it's entirety. Look, the fervent masturbatory predictions that the Rick Perry balloon has deflated are just wrong. Its going to be Rick Perry on the ballot. Hope you approve.

Posted by: Max Power is also chillin at September 21, 2011 09:27 PM (+wxCD)

112 Frankly, I'm against the death penalty for precisely the reason that I would rather err on the side of caution. Life in prison with no parole is a MUCH harsher penalty than a needle. Lifers should never get TV or education privileges. Lock 'em up, let them rot, and if they turn out to be innocent, ask them why all their friends and others - as well as evidence - pointed the finger at them.

Posted by: Sgt. York at September 21, 2011 09:28 PM (B6nJc)

113 112, LMFAO, what a classless loser POS we have as President. Please lord don't let us make a mistake like that again.

Posted by: Oldsailor's poet at September 21, 2011 09:29 PM (ZDUD4)

114 If anyone calls me a grammarian at my funeral I will raise up and cock-punch them.

Posted by: sifty is all for domestic drilling at September 21, 2011 09:30 PM (4CSeG)

115 "Protesting capital punishment, using death threats." I argue on behalf of capital punishment and I'm always getting death threats from those who oppose it.

Posted by: mike at September 21, 2011 09:31 PM (IBh7/)

116 117, Yeah but who pays for it? I know, the same people that pay the leagl fees for the hundreds of appeals. It's prolly a wash. It's just such a warm feeling to put them down.

Posted by: Oldsailor's poet at September 21, 2011 09:31 PM (ZDUD4)

117 Beefy Meatball & Dumb Blonde ... thank you! I needed that : )

I apologize for my OT ranting re: Twitter.

Nite all.

Posted by: Carolyn at September 21, 2011 09:33 PM (CQId4)

118

If Yellow shirt and White shirt were running together, what difference does it make? They're equally guilty regardless of who pulled the trigger. Both should have been put down.

Posted by: RokShox at September 21, 2011 09:34 PM (pcly4)

119 Apparently earlier that night Davis shot somebody else in the face and admitted to doing it. The ballistics of the cop shooting matched the other. If all of that is true that is pretty damning evidence.

Posted by: Ken Royall at September 21, 2011 09:35 PM (9zzk+)

120 If a pack of lions goes after a gazelle the gazelle doesn't care which lion brings him down. The gazelle just knows he's being killed. And the other lions aren't there to watch.

Posted by: sifty is all for domestic drilling at September 21, 2011 09:36 PM (4CSeG)

121 "I am a barbaric. I don't give a shit what you think. This guy deserved the sentence he got." "Well, you certainly aren't a grammarian." He's Conan the Grammarian!

Posted by: sauropod at September 21, 2011 09:40 PM (GPm6P)

122

Lol at the Huff Post article about the racist executed in Texas. They put up a picture where his eyes are red from the reflection during the taking of the photograph. The impression you're supposed to get is, "Jesus, that motherfucker is goddam evil! Look at them demon eyes!" Give me a fucking break.

As for this Troy Davis brouhaha, the real story here is why we're hearing about it. It's all about setting up a foundation to attack Rick Perry later for the Willingham execution as well as the soon to become truth media lie that Perry presided over eleventy million executions during his tenure as governor. Someone got pissed at the reaction of the crowd at the CNN debate when the death penalty came up. I haven't heard a goddamn thing about executions except for a fart in the paper and all of sudden it's a fucking trending topic in the MSM every damn day. You can bet your bottom dollar they're angling for a Perry assassination with this crap. Problem is I don't think it will work since most people don't give a flying fuckall about these scumbags getting the hot shot.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 21, 2011 09:41 PM (AF1jB)

123 I should have added in the above post that the media tried the same trick with Bush. Remember Karla Faye Tucker? They tried to hang that around Bush's neck just like they're going to do with Perry. Again, the problem is that most people don't give a flying fuck about death row inmates taking a gurney to the finish line after years of unsuccessful appeals.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 21, 2011 09:47 PM (AF1jB)

124 Surprisingly no Facebook postings from my normally and nominally liberal friends.

Posted by: John P. Squibob at September 21, 2011 09:49 PM (lqAhy)

125 Next on deck ...

Posted by: Chicago Voter at September 21, 2011 09:52 PM (qZb8X)

126 " Yeah but who pays for it? I know, the same people that pay the leagl fees for the hundreds of appeals. It's prolly a wash. It's just such a warm feeling to put them down."

Actually, with appeals and such, it costs 1.2 million dollars to put a person to death, and about $150,000 to house a person in jail for life assuming jailed person is 20 years old and shares a cell. Read that somewhere.

Posted by: Sgt. York at September 21, 2011 09:59 PM (B6nJc)

127 I'd also like to add that if I'm ever sentenced to death and in a position to order a last meal, I'll take some pussy with a side order of tits.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at September 21, 2011 09:59 PM (AF1jB)

128

OT: Leggo my BACON!

Police in the St. Louis suburb of University City say a suspect in a string of burglaries was caught after a homeowner reported finding him frying bacon in her kitchen.

Kenya Ealy says she returned home after an errand and found 36-year-old Damon Petty of St. Louis cooking breakfast.

http://tinyurl.com/St-Louis-Bacon

Posted by: Rewrite! at September 21, 2011 10:02 PM (d7Px0)

129 133 A Furburger and 'Gina Juice man, eh?

Posted by: Rewrite! at September 21, 2011 10:04 PM (d7Px0)

130 I shouldda helped a brotha out

Posted by: Clarance Thomas at September 21, 2011 10:18 PM (5PVGE)

131

It's the classic two-man murder, one is guilty, and one is actually innocent (except for things that aren't capital offenses, like palling around with killers).

Seems like the felony-murder rule should apply - if both assaulted the homeless guy, they're both on the hook for the murder.

*shrug*

Posted by: Fa Cube Itches at September 21, 2011 10:23 PM (2xfbm)

132 130 Surprisingly no Facebook postings from my normally and nominally liberal friends.

Posted by: John P. Squibob at September 22, 2011 01:49 AM (lqAhy)

Had some hippie FB "friends" from the UK all bundled up in knots over it. As if they don't have enough shit being flung at them in their own country they have to "take up the cause" of some dipshit murderer they've never met. Fuck I hate hippies.

Posted by: tangonine at September 21, 2011 10:28 PM (x3YFz)

133 Hey @AlecBaldwin do you talk to your daughter with that mouth? oh wait... you do.

Posted by: DANEgerus at September 21, 2011 10:29 PM (NhcG5)

134 I haven't posted anything about this case, because it is a kind of hitting close to home thing. My nephew's wife was there tonight reporting on this execution, but she was also there because of her relationship to the victim's family. So fuck a bunch of hand-wringing, people here feel like justice was well-served. Also, I missed all the worry about whether the racist dragging the black guy was really, really, really guilty hand-wringing from the left. I guess that was an ok execution, huh?

Posted by: di butler, bitches at September 21, 2011 10:29 PM (bO3kG)

135 I took great joy in posting on their threads filled with "

" and "Maybe Obama will help

" with:

"Dead. 11:08 local. That's what happens when you kill cops."

heh.

Posted by: tangonine at September 21, 2011 10:30 PM (x3YFz)

136

Seems like the felony-murder rule should apply - if both assaulted the homeless guy, they're both on the hook for the murder.

*shrug*

Posted by: Fa Cube Itches at September 22, 2011 02:23 AM (2xfbm)

As Ace said, the SCOTUS declared that off-limits for death penalty cases.

That's the hilarious thing. He's guilty, guilty, guilty. It's only the technicalities of the law that would -- if the anti-DP crowd's claims were true -- keep him from the needle. They acknowledge his guilt.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 10:31 PM (73tyQ)

137 Although he says Davis was wearing the White Shirt, he says he was coerced by police into implicating Davis in an earlier shooting, and now says that despite being within ten feet of Davis when the shots were fired, he didn't see anything.

Yes. And therein lieth the bullshit.

Posted by: tangonine at September 21, 2011 10:33 PM (x3YFz)

138

Alec Baldwin is reveling in Davis' death. When I saw the attention whore shore up his self esteem by sicing his minions on Malkin I was reminded of Baron Harkonen pulling the heart plug from one of his slaves and bathing in the dying man's blood.

Baldwin is using another man's death to score some cheap lib self-righteous cred'. He's mentally masterbating over the fact that so many mindless followers of his jump at his command and attack. He'll sleep well tonight, his fragile, fan-nourished ego has fed well tonight.

Malkin may have supported Davis' death, but Baldwin is profiting from it, he's reveling in it.

Posted by: 29Victor at September 21, 2011 10:37 PM (ES9R7)

139 Alec Baldwin is reveling in Davis' death.

Yeah, that's the real hypocrisy here. They only oppose the death penalty so they can feel self-righteous.

They love to use dead bodies.

Posted by: AmishDude at September 21, 2011 10:52 PM (73tyQ)

140 @132 " Yeah but who pays for it? I know, the same people that pay the leagl fees for the hundreds of appeals. It's prolly a wash. It's just such a warm feeling to put them down."

Actually, with appeals and such, it costs 1.2 million dollars to put a person to death, and about $150,000 to house a person in jail for life assuming jailed person is 20 years old and shares a cell. Read that somewhere.

---

Justice* is worth the cost.

*_{and the price of admission to see so many lefty idiots pissing
themselves live on the internet, because they were played by some opportunistic ambulance chaser. The real criminal here is the defense attorney who manufactured this non-crisis and stirred up all this racial hatred and civil discontent.}

Posted by: Flounder at September 21, 2011 10:57 PM (Kkt/i)

141

Good riddance to the scumbag. Too bad that his partner in crime couldn't take a needle as well. And throw in that Mumia Abu-Jamal piece of shit the left is always crying about for the perfect trifecta. I 'd pay to be part of the counter protest outside the prison on the day that Pennsylvania flushes that dude.

Posted by: Kansas Gman at September 21, 2011 10:57 PM (u4a/I)

142 For those who insist that the life in prison is worse than the DP, look up Speck, Richard. He had the time of his life in prison after avoiding the needle.

Posted by: Damn Sockpuppet at September 21, 2011 11:16 PM (dIHHd)

143 I was a Savannah cop for a number of years after this cold blooded murder occurred. I never knew Mark personally, but I know many of the officers that worked the case. The Officer that took the initial report is one of my wife's best friends. There has never been any doubt amongst the members of the Savannah Police Dept (now Metro) that Troy Davis was the shooter. The Savannah PD has terrible racial issues within the ranks, but there has never been anything but unity when it comes to this case. Davis was the shooter.

Posted by: hobbes at September 21, 2011 11:29 PM (+CcmI)

144 Read the federal judge's report and ruling before you listen to this crap. Only two witnesses recanted anything material as the court points out, and they were available to testify but Davis didn't call them. The judge describes the defense "evidence" as "smoke and mirrors" in that there is nothing whatever indicating any witness lied or recanted a material fact other than was already known and brought out by defense at trial (minor contradictions).

Guilty as hell, no doubt at all.

http://tinyurl.com/3ho6ycs

Posted by: Adjoran at September 21, 2011 11:47 PM (VfmLu)

145 The key part of the long ruling starts on page 127 (the typewritten numbers, not the pdf numbering) where the court discusses the rules of evidence and why nothing Davis presents affects the finding of the trial and appeals courts at all - including going through every single witness statement in detail.

Posted by: Adjoran at September 21, 2011 11:49 PM (VfmLu)

146 .......but,but,but in Europe they don't have the death penalty, they just put you in jail for 5 years. We should be sophisticated like Europe. To them we look like neanderthals. - some dweeb New York Times reading liberal who loves Obama, drives a Volvo,wants more bike paths, and "thinks green".

Posted by: Case at September 21, 2011 11:54 PM (FD6YW)

147 "Justice* is worth the cost. "

Life without parole is still justice in my book.

Posted by: Sgt. York at September 21, 2011 11:55 PM (B6nJc)

148 Life without parole is still justice in my book.

Giving these murderers a chance to re-live their greatest hits over-and-over again is not justice in my book.

Posted by: Damn Sockpuppet at September 21, 2011 11:58 PM (dIHHd)

149 Come on in the water's fine!

Posted by: Tookie Williams welcoming fellow wrongly executed powerful black man to his first pikes and pentagra at September 22, 2011 12:47 AM (2xclE)

150 That would be pikes and pentagram pool party.

Posted by: Tookie, ashamed of his lack of knowledge of comment character limits at September 22, 2011 12:48 AM (2xclE)

151 But seriously though, Greg Gutfeld had the best take on the laughable outrage among the professionally and eternally outraged. @GregGutfeld weird how people who believe in justice are made to feel bad because a celebrity found time between lines of coke to pretend to care. Heh. And this one: @GregGutfeld @alecbaldwin reads a wikipedia page, and suddenly he's the bard of Starbucks And finally: @greggutfeld to @alecbaldwin, whatever happened tonight was wrong. but oh...look! a shiny button!

Posted by: Wonkish Rogue at September 22, 2011 12:55 AM (2xclE)

152 Some of these libtards are also against the idea of life without parole. They believe EVERYONE deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Some countries do not have life without parole at all. If the libtards win the death penalty battle, you can bet that this will be their next big thing.

Posted by: Ellipsis Lacuna at September 22, 2011 12:56 AM (vPtaA)

153 7 blacks and 5 whites convicted him = Justice done.

"Lets kill him to see whether he is innocent", Nancy Pelosi on the event.

Everyone in prison is actually innocent, NYTimes.

Posted by: NortonPete at September 22, 2011 12:59 AM (8zxoH)

154

Here's what we know for certain.

He was convicted by a jury of twelve people who heard 34 prosecution witnesses and 5 defense witnesses after deliberating for two hours. Their decision has been reviewed at least a dozen times over twenty years by the Georgia Supreme Court, the United States Court for the Southern District of Georgia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States Supreme Courts.

The Supreme Court, for the first time in 50 years, even ordered the Circuit Court to conduct a full evidentially hearing. At that hearing, the defense refused to call the man it accused of the shooting and two of the so-called "re canters" to the stand, even though the court stated it would not consider their affidavits if they did not testify.

But all those jurors and judges were apparently retards who couldn't see what is obvious to the supergenius Hollywood libs who read one or two blogs and the wikipedia page on the topic and now know everything is there is to know about it.

Posted by: Jingo at September 22, 2011 01:50 AM (mdwWR)

155 48 Here's my take on the capital punishment in general. While, on the whole I support it, how many people would willingly forfeit their lives to make a point if an executed prisoner were later found to actually be innocent? Yeah, I didn't think so. What I'm not hearing from the left is a peep about innocents being executed since DNA testing became routine. However, let's face it, there are corrupt cops and prosecutors, and they should be executed too if it is determined that they played a role in causing an innocent person to be killed. Posted by: SFGoth at September 22, 2011 12:13 AM (g/WYX) That Roland Freisler wannabe, Nifong, comes to mind. Had he had his way, 5 innocent kids would be rotting in a NC prison and he would be feted by the leftist. That said, from everything I've read about the Davis case, justice has been served, and done.

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at September 22, 2011 01:57 AM (UlUS4)

156 So how's Davis doing today, anyway?

Posted by: CoolCzech at September 22, 2011 02:22 AM (niZvt)

157 Still dead...the real trouble will come at his funeral in Savannah.

Posted by: hobbes at September 22, 2011 02:24 AM (+CcmI)

158 The death penalty is a huge waste of money. We should streamline the process to make it cheaper. For instance just house them with the normal prisoners. Also, the Constitution grants you the right to a defense, but not the right to 8 of them. Some lawyer wants to do it for free, cool. Your family wants to pay for it, cool. Otherwise, tough shit. Also, no more automatic appeals. many a death row inmate doesn't ask for their appeals process, if the prisoner doesn't request one, screw the lawyers who are interested in making a buck off the public dime.

Posted by: Malcolm Tent at September 22, 2011 02:52 AM (y1EAd)

159 Step 1: cheat to get conviction. Step 2: when defendant appeals, the court assumes he's guilty, thus upholds the conviction. Step 3: Justice I have no idea if it happened here. If you think it doesnt happen, then you are probably really confused why the founders of this government mistrusted state actors. I don't trust any of them. Especially cops. Especially prosecutors. Especially judges. Jurors are the most honest, but it's easy to game them via evidentiary rulings.

Posted by: Internet tough guy at September 22, 2011 03:01 AM (STTZD)

160 Posted by: Clubber Lang "Except Baldwin is much more personally hateful than what I've seen Coulter say." Balwin the Bully. Ask his 11 y/o daughter.

Posted by: Yerton at September 22, 2011 03:32 AM (tKWAs)

161 Ok, so one committed murder.

The other actively aided & abetted and was present at the time of the murder.

The sister actively aided & abetted after the fact. At a minimum she is guilty of harboring fugitives.

Why aren't all 3 of them guilty?

Posted by: Mark E at September 22, 2011 03:37 AM (w5RwR)

162 It's too bad Lawrence Brewer didn't drag Troy Davis to death. Then all sides could be happy with the results.

Posted by: Mr Fever Head at September 22, 2011 03:37 AM (ZgvjV)

163 "So how's Davis doing today, anyway?"

He's feeling cold and stiff this morning.

Posted by: Dick Nixon at September 22, 2011 04:04 AM (2+54Q)

164 So from square 1, Davis was not only shocked to be accused,but also traumatized from having seen his n...who he was standing next to..not only pistol whip a homeless man, but shoot a cop in the face and expressed this to the police. Right?...riiiight?

Posted by: Just explain it already at September 22, 2011 04:08 AM (UIEJa)

165 Caught Anderson Cooper last night right after the execution. CNN had this huge somber mood going on. Cooper has the cameras on the cameras on the scene with no commentary. Shows three girls, two of who were texting and what appeared to be laughing. Cuts back to somber Cooper saying something like people are all gathered most likely praying. I did not see anyone that looked like they wee praying.

Posted by: Billy Jack at September 22, 2011 04:15 AM (tIilm)

166 Shepard Smith will be in full outrage today. Yesterday he was nearly weeping. This POS should've been put down before this. The fact he was in the same night as that white trash in Texas that drug Byrd behind his truck is fitting bookends of human garbage

Posted by: Frank G at September 22, 2011 04:24 AM (1rPxL)

167 That death does become you, deah.

Posted by: Frank and Joe Hardy at September 22, 2011 04:39 AM (XVZqw)

168 It was wise and judicious for President Obama to decline to comment on this matterÂ—our system requires a deep respect for state sovereignty. Although many other public figures like Bob Barr foolishly opined on the matter, Obama properly recognized the sanctity of a local prosecution. The President knows that there is a time to speak in the face of injustice. When a racist police officer unlawfully invaded the home of a respected professor and asked him impertinent questions, Obama called out the officer in front of the world and declared that he acted Â“stupidly.Â” Then, in a gracious show of forgiveness, he healed the nation by inviting the officer to a White House Â“beer summit.Â” Could the President not do the same thing here? Despite their differences, the families of Troy Davis and the slain officer are both hurting. Why not bring them, and the nation, together in another beer summit? Healing, not hurting, is what this country needs.

Posted by: Jennifer Harris at September 22, 2011 04:42 AM (N7xJb)

169

It also seems established that between one Sylvester Coles and one Troy Davis, one was wearing the Yellow Shirt (and therefore is innocent of the murder)

Horseshit.

Coles and Davis (or at least White Shirt and Yellow Shirt) accosted and pistol-whipped a homeless man while he was drinking beer

So, neither of them were exactly innocent.

Lesson: Don't think you can pistol whip some innocent person and might not get killed over it.

Posted by: ThomasD at September 22, 2011 04:44 AM (UK5R1)

170 "So, if the anti-death penalty people are right, and we are convicting innocent people left and right, why do they only seem to care about death penalty cases where there is a much higher standard of evidence to begin with?

For every nominal innocent there are many, many more innocents serving life, or 20 years.

Hell, why weren't these same people going nuts when the government blamed Steven Hatfill for the anthrax mailings and tried him in the court of public opinion?

Posted by: 18-1 at September 21, 2011 11:45 PM (FBr/C)

Yeah, or that poor sap security guard at the Atlanta Olympics, whom the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation practically crucified for the pipe bomb incident, and to this day refuses to recant any of the trash they printed about him.

Posted by: DaveinNC at September 22, 2011 04:55 AM (boNGU)

171 Actually, at least in California, "palling around with a killer is a crime". The law actually states that if the police kill your partner during the crime, you can be charged with murder.

Posted by: Chuckit at September 22, 2011 05:28 AM (Hc9Yd)

172 perhaps he wanted the yellow shirt so that he wouldn't be identified with the killer? perhaps coles was releuctant to say he gave him the shirt (at first) because that would make him an accessory? sorry- the guy was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Posted by: Irving Schatz at September 22, 2011 05:28 AM (lB/5N)

173 If we kill just a few more our state executions will pass North Korea! Look out Iran, we're coming for you next! We've already left Syria and Saudi Arabia in the dust. USA! USA!

Posted by: Jordan at September 22, 2011 05:29 AM (4z6KA)

174 Shorter jordan ..
It's because I care sooo much .Sniff

Posted by: awkward davies at September 22, 2011 05:51 AM (YCW1b)

175 There are presently over 800 people in prison for homicide that had been previously in prison for homicide. That is at least 800 innocent people that were killed because the death penalty was not applied the first time.

Posted by: polynikes - Texan for Romney at September 22, 2011 06:02 AM (Z6fyp)

176 If we kill just a few more our state executions will pass North Korea!

You are a profoundly silly person.

Posted by: toby928™ at September 22, 2011 06:03 AM (GTbGH)

177 AJ in the house.

Posted by: toby928™ at September 22, 2011 06:04 AM (GTbGH)

178 I would also apply the death penalty to rape with attempted murder. Just because they failed doesn't mean they should live. I came to this decision after they paroled the sick rapist who cut off the arms of his victim and left her to die. Guess what he did after he was released?

Posted by: polynikes - Texan for Romney at September 22, 2011 06:13 AM (Z6fyp)

179 the pictures of the liberals weeping over his execution shows what a bunch of phony asses they are. They didn't know this guy from Adam a month ago now they are so passionate about everything about him.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at September 22, 2011 06:18 AM (1Jaio)

180

If OJ hadn't been incarcerated, he would have persuaded the real killer to step forward.

So it's OJ's fault.

And if you're going to commit a murder, wear inconspicuous clothing. That's why I don't understand people who have vanity license plates--why make your vehicle easier to spot?

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 22, 2011 06:23 AM (Br3eE)

181

I have to say the Gacy execution had more of a festive feel to it...I celebrated with "Lethal Injection" shots at Cody Coyote's.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at September 22, 2011 06:26 AM (Br3eE)

182 Posted by: Jennifer Harris at September 22, 2011 08:42 AM

Hee.
Parody posters--Your best entertainment value.

Posted by: LeBron Steinman at September 22, 2011 06:52 AM (TQy0T)

183

I think a good idea rally the conservative base would be for Rick Perry to personally perform each and every Texas execution using a garrotte. On TV.

In Texas, it might be more culturally sensitive to just shoot 'em though.

Posted by: West at September 22, 2011 07:02 AM (1Rgee)

184 "So how's Davis doing today, anyway?"

He's feeling cold and stiff this morning.
Posted by: Dick Nixon

A little extra-strength Tylenol and he will be fine. Still dead but fine.

Posted by: mpfs, TPT, Barbarian and Bad Grammarian at September 22, 2011 07:07 AM (iYbLN)

185 Troy Davis would have never been executed if he had hired us as his lawyers.

At the very least we could have gotten him his Social Security benefits.

Posted by: Binder & Binder at September 22, 2011 07:19 AM (iYbLN)

186 NEXT!

Posted by: R. Aurum Tar at September 22, 2011 07:20 AM (km9GR)

187 The reason the left doesnt mind is because it was just another white pig getting his comeuppance at the hand of a noble minority Democrat voter.

Posted by: The Drizzle at September 22, 2011 07:29 AM (ysCLj)

188

Both Davis and Coles deserve to be executed. They were out 'wilding' or whatever you want to call it, the situation became lethal, and a cop died. It doesn't matter who pulled the trigger or who ran away after the initial assault because both are equally guilty. They were together, intent on criminal behavior, f*ck 'em both and any namby-pamby whiner that wants to claim either one is innocent. Innocent of what?

When I was was little (probably in elementary school) there was a lesson taught that went something like this: If you are part of a gang that robs a bank, even if you are the unarmed get-away car driver that never goes inside the building, and one of your accomplices shoots and kills a bank guard, then you are just as guilty of murder as if you had pulled the trigger yourself.

No innocent man was executed last night. The only travesty is that another, equally guilty man did not go to his great reward alongside Davis.

Posted by: hughie at September 22, 2011 07:32 AM (+56Bh)

189 Too lazy to read comments. I thought if you and a bud went out to mug somebody, and he shot that somebody, you were both on the hook for murder. Even the guy that didn't pull the trigger. Am I wrong?

Posted by: S. Weasel at September 22, 2011 07:41 AM (zGphV)

190

The felony murder doctrine -- if you are committing a felony, such as pistol whipping somebody -- and somebody gets killed, you are a murderer even if you aren't the one who pulled the trigger.

Nail 'em both, whatever shirts they wore.

Posted by: Walt at September 22, 2011 07:45 AM (M3qfr)

191 199 Too lazy to read comments. I thought if you and a bud went out to mug somebody, and he shot that somebody, you were both on the hook for murder. Even the guy that didn't pull the trigger. Am I wrong?
Posted by: S. Weasel

That's what I thought. In my city, a guy got convicted for murder just because a cop fell into a ditch and drowned while pursuing him. In TX, if you commit a felony and a police officer dies in the course of trying to stop you, you get charged with murder.

I don't know if that guy got the death penalty though. Maybe that's where they draw the line.

Posted by: stace at September 22, 2011 07:47 AM (lYlx9)

192 I'm was on fence about the death penalty until Kenneth McDuff was released from death row and went on to rape and kill six more women. That was a clarifier.

Posted by: stace at September 22, 2011 07:50 AM (lYlx9)

193

Which is why the Founders thought it beter that a guilty man go free than to punish an innocent man.

Between jury nullification and politicizing the prosecution and judiciary, we can't honestly claim to have a just and honest judicial system.

Killing a man is not a thing to be taken lightly. Allowing prosecutors to build a capital murder case on supposition, sophistry and innuendo so that they can use those cases merely as justification to be re-elected or to run a successful campaign for higher office?

...we've gotten lost somewhere along the way since we shook off King George and England.

Posted by: Warren Bonesteel at September 22, 2011 07:55 AM (E7Z1r)

194 right ... go ahead and ignore the weapon evidence ...

Posted by: JeffC at September 22, 2011 07:56 AM (A3tpD)

195

Life in prison with no parole is a MUCH harsher penalty than a needle.~Sgt. York

Looks like Davis agreed with you, which is why he kept filing to get his execution date moved up./sarc

Posted by: Speller at September 22, 2011 08:27 AM (J74Py)

196 I'd ponder the possibility that anti-death penalty advocates were arguing in good faith if they weren't planning on eliminating life without parole options in sentencing. They're not pro-justice, they're pro-criminal.

Posted by: h0mi at September 22, 2011 08:43 AM (0f5+I)

197

recantations or even "different" versions that come out 5, 10, 15 or more years down the road are completely unreliable. eyewitness testimony is iffy even early on but as time goes on memory fades, you hear other people's version and you start to "remember" things you didnt recall early on due to those stories suggestive effect on your memory. you incorporate other people's story into your version of events. also some people start to feel guilty that they helped send someone to death row and regret it.

for the anti-DP to try and capitalize on this is just opportunism in its rawest form. they cant convince people that the death penalty is wrong so they instead try to make it look like innocent people are dying. they are so sure in the righteousness of their cause they feel any means is justified.

Posted by: chas at September 22, 2011 09:00 AM (TKF1Y)

198

Coles rushed to the police station the next morning to implicate Davis in the murder.

Does that mean Coles was actually innocent?

Or does that mean Coles was smart enough to realize that someone was going to hang for this, and better to get the police focused on Davis? Posted by: Ace at 11:25 PM

Quick question...why didn't Davis do this?

Posted by: Deanna at September 22, 2011 09:02 AM (BmLEJ)

199 Ace,
Thanks for the link to my site.

Posted by: Skeptical Juror at September 22, 2011 10:02 AM (CagCl)

200 Yeah after 20 years no one could provide evidence that this scumbag was innocent. I am so broken up.

Posted by: Molon Labe at September 22, 2011 11:50 AM (S7K8x)

201 NYC aghast that they didn't have photo evidence, a smoking gun, DNA, a signed confession, and a taped confession. Evil death penalty. How dare they execute a choir boy like this worm? If you bother to read about the recants they aren't recants at all.

Posted by: Molon Labe at September 22, 2011 11:54 AM (S7K8x)

202 Obama is a criminal,stuttering clustefuck of a miserable failure. CSCoaMF

Posted by: steevy at September 22, 2011 12:17 PM (fyOgS)

203
There are so much to learn from your post here, Uma, well done.

Posted by: The Detachment AudioBook at September 22, 2011 05:55 PM (+uroR)

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