What If Justice Had Prevailed for Troy Davis?

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

The following words were written by Troy Davis in 2008, three years before he was executed by the state of Georgia:

“As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see firsthand, I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the surge of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all. This is not a case about Troy Davis. It is about the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.”

Just think, what if justice had indeed prevailed? What if the half-million people who signed petitions for his release got a day of celebration instead of being made to feel hopeless?

Today, September 21, 2021, is the tenth anniversary of his Troy’s death. That is, we have had ten years of being under the expectation of no justice from the courts. His execution (judicial murder?) was both state and federal. When his case reached the Supreme Court in 2011, SCOTUS sent it back to a local judge in Savannah, asking for an analysis of the witness’s recantations. Then, accepting that outrageous, and I mean outrageous, analysis of the. witness recantations, SCOTUS threw in the towel.

This case is so important to us all that I want to remove race from it. Troy was black; the court was mainly white. I say who cares.  Granted, many times in the life of Troy and his wonderful family, they would have felt the slings and arrows of racial discrimination. Sure, race has been an indisputable part of our country’s life. But the matter of injustice in courts is now universal; no matter what your color of skin, you will be treated as “equal.” That is to say, we have attained equality of oppression, pain, and humiliation.

The Waiting Room

Let’s entertain a make-believe scenario in which all goes well.  But first I set the stage for the day, September 21, 2011, which was the autumn equinox.  On the real day, not the pretend day, Troy’s family made a five-hour trip from their home in Savannah to the Jackson Prison where a Death Row prisoner can say goodbye to his loved ones. (Troy had been on Death Row for 22 years — his arrest at age 20 was in 1989; by now he was 42.)

His mother, Mrs Virginia Davis, did not attend as she was already in heaven, having died the previous April from a broken heart, age 65, in fine health. Troy’s sister Kimberly was there, and a teenage nephew, DeJuan Correia. Troy’s famous sister Martina Correia, who had been an army nurse in Iraq, was there, despite being in the late stage of cancer. (She died 6 weeks later.)

The Dad, who had been one of the first African Americans in the Special Forces — in the 1950s!,  had died soon after the trial in which Troy was unjustly convicted. Martina told me that he died because of the injustice of it all. She said he stopped taking his medicine for diabetes and did not want to live.  I believe the impact was particularly great for him, as he had come out of the army “expecting better.” Martina also said that his way of teaching the kids how to manage racism was: Do twice as good as everyone else, if not three times as good, so you will be taken seriously.

On the afternoon, Troy was “prepped” for death.  He had already signed a form saying how he wanted his corpse to be disposed of.  (CAN YOU IMAGINE!). On the Monday prior to this Wednesday execution date, the Georgia Pardon Board had said No to commuting the death sentence to a life sentence. Even the Pope and former President Carter, a Georgian, had asked for mercy for Troy — to no avail.

Word then came to the waiting room that Justice Clarence Thomas had been asked to rattle the Supreme Court’s cage once again.

The family — and the nation standing by on YouTube — were ecstatic.  The same thing had happened before, in 2008, when Troy really was saved by the bell. But the delay in 2011 meant the family had to continue to sit on metal folding chairs until around 10:50 pm, at which point they were told that the last-minute intervention had failed. Troy Anthony Davis, strapped to the gurney, gave as his last words:

“… The incident that happened that night is not my fault. I did not have a gun.  All I can ask … is that you look deeper into this case so that you can finally see the truth….”

Pretend Troy’s Life Had Been Spared

I am an optimist. I believe we are all handling injustice in America stupidly. We could lick this thing if we had the right attitude. Now I’ll go all outdoors showing what could have happened on that day, one decade ago. Just let me create an imaginary scene. With the family sitting there at 7pm, word comes in that Gale Buckner of the Pardon Board had experienced a change of heart. (Or maybe she came to see that her future would be unduly burdened by this tragic event.) Her vote changed the Pardon Board 5 votes from 2/3 to 3/2.

When prisoners are pardoned, they do not usually leave the premises for a week or so, but to give this story a party atmosphere, let’s say that Troy gets down from the gurney, joins the family and they march off into the balmy evening. Of course in this pretend story, Martina’s cancer went into remission and stayed there!

In Savannah, a few days later, Troy was deeply moved when scores of policemen came to the Davis home to apologize to him. They said their superiors had ordered them to force the false witnesses to put the blame on Troy. They had been feeling really bad about it all these years. They said the scales were beginning to fall from their eyes about a lot of things, and they planned to hold some public meetings to seek information from locals about what improvements they ought to make.

The next group to express a fresh view was comprised of the 3,000 clergy who had signed a petition for Troy’s release.  They decided to form a united club for priests, rabbis, and others to declare that a new morning was breaking around the world.

The leader of this clergy band had been moved by a bunch of Irish nuns whom Martina had roped in during her campaign to save Troy. They priests said “It is our plain duty to preach from the pulpit that court corruption must end. The Good Lord will not forgive us for standing as spectators while justice is collapsing.”  Yay!

Before long, many journalists and editors, including those from the Atlanta Constitution-Journal and the New York Times did a major re-think of their professional ethics.  They would attend court trials, take notes, speak to witnesses, and attempt to tell it like it is, instead of operating on the basis of a formula that tends to polarize people and creates a sense of hopelessness.

Some of their videographers offered to do a documentary on the seven persons who had recanted their false testimony against Troy in 1989. Here are two examples:

Antoine Williams: “They asked me to describe the shooter and what he looked like and what he was wearing. I kept telling them that I didn’t know. It was dark, my windows were tinted, and I was scared. …. After the officers talked to me, they gave me a statement and told me to sign it. I signed it. I did not read it because I cannot read.”

Larry Young: “I couldn’t honestly remember what anyone looked like or what different people were wearing. Plus, I had been drinking that day, so I just couldn’t tell who did what. The cops didn’t want to hear that and kept pressing me to give them answers. They made it clear that we weren’t leaving until I told them what they wanted to hear ….”

The recanters would also be given medals for the courage they displayed by finally telling the truth, in the face of the government threatening them with a perjury charge for their original lying!

Word about this documentary passed over to the law department at University of Georgia in Athens GA. Students quickly saw that many prosecutorial habits would have to be thrown out with the bath water. They recalled that their teacher Professor Wilkes had criticized the practice of copsuckery. He wrote:

“I am concerned about the judge’s practice of methodically accepting the police versions of disputed events while simultaneously rejecting citizens’ versions of these events. This verges on what is called ‘copsuckery’ – slavish or excessive deference to law enforcement personnel — and may be another manifestation of regulatory capture in the criminal justice system, under which many judges view themselves not as protectors of the rights of citizens but as cheerleaders for police and prosecutors.”

Troy’s sister Ms Kimberly Davis had been rightfully righteous at the time of the non-pretend execution on September 21, 2011.  She had told The Guardian she would work to clear her brother’s name. Kimberly, who was bereaved of both her parents and both her beloved siblings had said:

“My brother was murdered by the state of Georgia. For the Troy Davises who came before him, and the Troy Davises who will come after him, we want to stop the killing of innocent men.”

Thus, in the revised scenario, when Pardon Board, police, clergy, journalists, law students had all taken a new lease on life, Kimberly set out to encourage human rights movements both at home and abroad.  Her sister had gone on an Amnesty International trip to France where a huge collection of activists gathered to wave the flag for Troy.

But this time Kimberly was accompanied by Troy!

I hardly need say that when other men on Death Row came forward with a genuine story of innocence, both Troy and Kimberly quickly put paid to their “gurney visit.” Consider the plight of Nathaniel Wood in Alabama.  On March 4, 2020, I had sent a petition for a Writ of Error Coram Nobis for him.  It said:

“In Nathaniel Woods case, the jury did not hear information that was withheld about the policemen who were killed. The actual killer, Kerry Spencer, has said that Woods is 100% innocent. Missing from the trial was available information that the police who were killed ran a protection scheme with drug dealers in Birmingham. They had entered the house earlier in the day looking for their debtor, Tyran Cooper.

“The prosecutor built a case that Nathaniel Woods ‘masterminded’ the killing of police out of hatred of cops. The evidence for that came from Woods’ girlfriend who later said she was coerced by threats, as she had violated probation. The killer, Kerry Spence, attests that there was no masterminding — the shooting took place in an extreme moment of self-defense.”

Alabama did execute Nathaniel, but Kerry Spence remains on Death Row there (now in 2021). Kimberly can do her thing!

In my 2013 book Fraud Upon the Court, I quoted Charles Lamb’s poem Hester as a tribute to Martina.  I now re-quote as a tribute to Kimberly Davis:

Thank you, Troy, for your good life.