The Troy Davis Case
Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has been on death row for the past 18 years for a murder that the evidence indicates he did not commit. There is no physical evidence that ties him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses recanted.
In a major breakthrough on August 17, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a federal judge to review the evidence in the case.
“The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death,” Justice Stevens wrote in a concurrence joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, “clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing.” The review is expected to begin in September.
Join the NAACP in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
- Troy Davis was convicted of murder and sentenced to death solely on the basis of nine (9) eyewitness accounts. To date, seven of the nine eyewitnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony.
- Three of the eyewitnesses now claim their testimony was coerced by the Savannah, Georgia Police Department. Two other eyewitnesses recently stated they never actually saw the murder and that their original testimony was completely false.
- Troy Davis has appealed his case twice to the Georgia Supreme Court, twice to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and twice to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each time, citing procedural grounds, the courts refused to even consider the evidence of innocence and recanted testimony.
