Unreliable evidence at Troy Davis’s trial defended by original prosecutor DA Spencer Lawton October 23rd, 2008 Talk Nation Radio for October 23, 2008 Chatham County Georgia District Attorney Spencer Lawton on Troy Anthony Davis Unreliable evidence at trial defended by original prosecutor in Davis case zip Listen to this week’s broadcast: here not zipped here TRT:30:08 Produced by Dori Smith, WHUS Storrs, FM 91.7 at the University of CT, a Pacifica Affiliate Station Download at Pacifica at http://www.audioport.org Or go to Archive.org for a wide variety of formats suitable for podcasting, online listening, broadcasting on regular channels or LPFM and internet radio stations airing the show. Chatham County Georgia DA Spencer Lawton discusses his statements to the press about the quality of his original trial of Troy Davis. Davis was arrested in 1989 for the shooting of a police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail. Spencer Lawton explains how he asked for the death penalty and got it. He insists the witnesses at trial were reliable, but seven of nine have since recanted. He finds their recantation evidence ’suspect’ because it’s ‘too much of a coincidence’. Lawton begins by arguing that the witnesses were telling the truth at trial but lying when they recanted. When pressed for more detail on the reasons the courts refused to hear the new evidence Lawton admitted it was due to procedure, claiming he had nothing to do with it. ‘Not me, the law!’ Lawton has however been arguing against the defense in the Davis case throughout lower court proceedings including one held at the Georgia Supreme Court in 2007. As we talked with Spencer Lawton about other aspects of the case he brought against Davis he claimed the original trial witnesses were cross examined by both the prosecution and defense and none of them said they had been coerced. Attorney Deirdre O’Connor says that’s flat out wrong. Then we hear a clip from the 2007 appeal hearing where Lawton was present while his Assistant DA David Lock said some of the witnesses did say at trial that they had been coerced into signing what police wanted them to sign. The courts found against Davis and his attorneys on procedural grounds however Spencer Lawton insists they did so on grounds that they did not believe the new evidence was worthy. Actually the Georgia Supreme Court decision on Davis’s 2007 appeal was by one vote, and there was a scathing dissent by Chief Justice Leah Sears who wrote: …’I believe that this case illustrates that this Court’s approach to extraordinary motions for new trials based on new evidence is overly rigid and fails to allow an adequate inquiry into the fundamental question, which is whether or not an innocent person might have been convicted or even, in this case, might be put to death’. The prosecution, Spencer Lawton and Assistant DA David Lock, argued that the recantations were presented ‘too late’ and said there were procedural grounds that should rule them out. One point they raised had to do with due diligence, they argued that by holding on to the affidavits obtained from recanting witnesses rather than presenting them immediately they showed that even they didn’t find them worthy. The defense argued that it took time to gather the affidavits. In the end part of the reason the affidavits were not accepted as a basis for a new trial was that one was not ’sworn.’ In fact, some of his witnesses were trying to recant at the time of the trial. State and federal courts have blocked affidavits and refused a new trial or evidence hearing on procedural grounds. Other guests on today’s show include: Attorney Deirdre O’Connor of Innocence Matters. She has been speaking with Troy Davis throughout the week and wrote an Amicus brief for the 2007 Georgia Supreme Court appeal in support of the defense. Kathleen ‘Kitty’ Behan is one of Troy Davis’s previous attorneys. Ezekiel Edwards is an eyewitness expert and staff attorney at the Innocence Project. He offered scientific analysis of the witnesses statements in the Davis trial for an upcoming Talk Nation Radio special scheduled for air on 10/24/2008 at 6 PM Eastern Standard Time at http://www.whus.org or FM 91.7 in the region of Hartford, Storrs, Middletown, eastern MA and western RI. (more below) Excerpt: The Savannah, Georgia D.A. calls Amnesty International, Innocence Matters, other groups calling for clemency and a new trial for Troy Davis, an angry “mob” at the court house gate. Asks reporter Dori Smith, “Suppose there were a court that was trying to decide somebody’s guilt or innocence and a mob gathered outside the court house chanting and demanding vengeance. I’m prepared to bet you wouldn’t be happy with that. And to think that the court would listen to that would be a bad thought. Now supposed a mob gathers outside the court house while the court is trying to decide guilt or innocence, based on the rule of law mind you, and the crowd chants and demands innocence. In both cases what is sought to be done is that the judicial process should yield to the chants of the mob. Am I right?” Dori Smith: “Are you calling Amnesty International the mob? I just want to be clear”. DA Spencer Lawton: “Yeah, sure, I well, I don’t know a mob, I’m calling every, the aggregate of people who have been swayed by what Amnesty International and the Innocence Project, and all these other little projects around, I’m saying that yeah what that is is basically, the thousands of faxes and emails and phone calls that I and others involved in the case have received, I characterize all of that as being a mob, I do”. —DA Spencer Lawton: “The attorneys for Mr. Davis examined them closely, did everything in their power to get these people to say that they were coerced by the police or that they really didn’t see what they thought they saw or whatever. And they all denied that.” Dori Smith: “Lawton is incorrect about that says Attorney Deirdre O’Connor, director of the group Innocence Matters based in Georgia and California. O’Connor wrote an Amicus brief to the Georgia Supreme Court in support of an appeal to have evidence in the case officially reviewed. She says several witnesses including a 16-year-old named Darrell Collins, did tell the court the testimony had been coerced.” Attorney Deirdre O’Connor: “When the prosecutor was trying to get him to implicate Mr. Davis Mr. Collins said listen, these things that I said to the police weren’t true. I said them because they threatened me. They told me that they would put me in jail, that I would be charged with a crime. Here are some quotes. he said, “I told the detective what he wanted to hear cuz I was scared. I didn’t want to go to jail. The police told me if I didn’t cooperate with them I’m gonna be in prison for ten to twelve years.” Right? But this was testimony provided in his presence to the jury in his case in which he was the lead attorney”. Smith: “During an appeal hearing in 2007 the Georgia Supreme Court heard an Assistant DA named Lock admit that there were witnesses who tried to back up at trial who said they had been coerced by police into signing statements:” Assistant DA David Lock Savannah Georgia: “There were some witnesses that backed up a little bit at trial. They were cross examined on whether the police coerced them. Some said yeah the police just wanted me to sign the statement. But you know that’s the most police coercion we’ve really heard even alleged in affidavits that oh they wanted me to, they they they forced, they they wanted me to sign the statement, they told me what they wanted me to say”. (David Lock is running for the office of District Attorney for 2008 for the Republican Party ticket.) More about the guests on this week’s show: Zeke Edwards is a staff attorney at the Innocence Project based in NY and a Mayer Brown Fellow focusing on eyewitness identification. He points out that more than 220 people have been cleared by DNA evidence but testimony from witnesses is another leading problem in the original flawed convictions. http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/113.php Kathleen A. Behan, National Law Journal named her one of the Top 50 women litigators http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/Fall2002/risingstars Innocence Matters, Attorney Deirdre O’Connor, Innocence Matters, www.freetroydavis.com From the web page: ‘Will this INNOCENT death row inmate - arrested at age 20 and imprisoned for the last 19 years -finally be given the opportunity to have the compelling evidence of his innocence heard by a jury of his peers? NOT ANYTIME SOON. A 57% majority decided that it was legally acceptable to deny Troy a new trial. The other 43% thought the question of Troy’s innocence was a fundamental one warranting a new day in court’. Amnesty http://www.aiusa.org or GFADP, http://www.gfadp.org/ and NCADP http://www.ncadp.org/ webites to sign the Petition Entitled Innocence Matters asking for Troy to get a new Trial. Also for further information try: The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty http://www.ncadp.org/ And the Death Penalty Information Center, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ (see: ‘Troy Anthony Davis’ and new: ‘Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took the occasion of the Court’s denial of review to a death row defendant in Georgia to question the adequacy of the appeals process in that state. On October 20, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Walker v. Georgia, an appeal from the Georgia Supreme Court, and Justice Stevens concurred in that denial. However, Justice Stevens said he found the lack of careful scrutiny by the lower court to be “particularly troubling,” especially since the case involved a black defendant and a white victim. Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote separately in the case, sharply disagreeing with Justice Stevens, and maintaining that no proportionality review by the Georgia Supreme Court was constitutionally required.’) http://www.troyanthonydavis.org Talk Nation Radio airs nationally through syndication with Pacifica Network.