My apologies. I should have qualified the second part of my statement as certainty of *his *guilt is an illusion. The evidence against him is slim at best.
You mean other than the “recanting witnesses” that didn’t actually recant, the other witnesses who never wavered in identifying him as the murderer, and the repeated hearing after hearing after hearing that he had that upheld the conviction? I suppose if you actually just ignore all of that, sure, you could call it “slim”. As Judge Moore stated in his ruling after the hearing Mr. Davis had presenting all his evidence: " Mr. Davis vastly overstates the value of his evidence of innocence" and “Ultimately, while Mr. Davis’s new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors. The vast majority of the evidence at trial remains intact, and the new evidence is largely not credible or lacking in probative value.”
The problem is that, even if what you say here is correct, Coulter has lied and distorted the truth so often in her career that she has lost any claim whatsoever to credibility.
In a national story like this, one that has attracted so many commentators in the media, any reasonable person should ask for an analysis that does not come from Ann Coulter before making up his or her mind on the subject. Even if we concede that just about all journalists and op-ed writers bring their own political predispositions to their writing, most of them (from both sides of the fence) have at least a passing acquaintance with the idea of rational analysis and good-faith conclusions based on a consideration of the evidence.
Coulter has demonstrated, time and again, that she is not only a hostage to her ideology, but that the main purpose of her writing is not to actually to generate thought and analysis, but to annoy and insult as many people who disagree with her as possible. She simply can’t be taken seriously as a news and media analyst. There are conservatives who are worth considering on issues like this; she just isn’t one of them.
In this particular thread, things are made even worse by the fact that Coulter’s argument was used as evidence by a Doper whose own inability to argue honestly and rationally rivals her own, and whose notion of what constitutes proper evidence for factual assertions boils down to little more than “I knew this one guy, back in the sixties.” Starving Artist quoting Ann Coulter piles density upon density, creating a veritable neutron star, into which all rational thought and discussion is sucked until it collapses into a black hole of reactionary ignorance.
Which ones were they? Four actually did recant on the stand and two others recanted in writing. There were only three of the non-police witnesses that did not recant, one of whom was the man implicated in the murder by other witnesses. I would not expect the investigator and police witnesses to recant. After all, they have a conviction to uphold and admitting to coercive tactics would be very problematic for them beyond this one case.
There is already evidence of police impropriety connected to this case. There are multiple allegations of coercion. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. One of those witnesses was the guy who hid from police for three days and then fingered another man, then later is alleged to have confessed to the murder himself and implicated by nine other people. There is no forensic evidence that put the gun that killed MacPhail in Davis’ hand fired at either the officer or the other shooting and the shell casings for both shootings were kept in the same bag. The bullet fragments also did not present sufficient forensic evidence to match the shootings.
The point of all of this is not that Davis is most certainly innocent, but that there is not enough credible evidence to ensure that we are not putting an innocent man to death.
The same judge admitted that the state’s case was “less than iron-clad”. It is morally reprehensible to execute a man on evidence that is less than iron-clad. There is no turning back.
I would suggest you read Judge Moore’s ruling on the case. It includes comments like: “Accordingly, Mr. Williams’s testimony established only that his statements were never coerced and that he can no longer remember his previous statements—not that his prior testimony was false or, more importantly, that Mr. Davis was not the shooter”, “Jeffery Sapp’s recantation is valueless because it is not credible”, “Mr. Collins testimony is neither credible nor a full recantation”. If you want to call Ms. Coulter on misrepresentations of the case, I would suggest you also look as critically at statements that these witnesses “recanted”.
More from the ruling: “Although Mr. Williams’s own testimony undermines allegations of coercion, there was also credible testimony by the officers and prosecutors that Mr. Williams was not coerced.”, “Moreover, the State provided credible, live testimony from Officers Ramsey and Oglesby that Mr. Holmes was not coerced by police”, “Third, his claims of state coercion are impossible to square with various aspects of his allegedly false testimony, such as claiming that Mr. Davis acted in self-defense.” And on and on.
I despise the lifting of words from full quotes. Here’s the full sentence: “After careful consideration and an in-depth review of twenty years of evidence, the Court is left with the firm conviction that while the State’s case may not be ironclad, most reasonable jurors would again vote to convict Mr. Davis of Officer MacPhail’s murder.”
The gist of my point is that all of these things you and Mr. Davis’ supporters are presenting have been presented before. To appellate courts, parole/clemency boards, and then to Judge Moore, who conducted an extensive hearing and offered a 172 page ruling covering these things in great depth. He has had his hearings and his “evidence” was found wanting and the evidence against him was found beyond a reasonable doubt.
Excellent point. I stand corrected. However, your original cite didn’t say any of this, so I was only going by the information given.
I agree with this statement. I was merely pointing out that the info in your original cite indicated that he was in fact guilty under the laws of that time and place, and thus didn’t support the “innocents have been executed” point. Your point would have been better made by a cite that gave the “constructive malice” misapplication story. Admittedly, I may also have misread your original cite. If so, and the info was in there but I missed it, then still, I stand corrected.
So essentially the judge chose to believe the police witnesses over the non-police witnesses. Gotcha. I’m nobody, really, but there are plenty of sharp legal minds out there, including and other than those at Amnesty International, who disagree with the judge’s ruling. Once convicted, the burden on Davis was much higher than in his original trial, which wouldn’t have been such a problem if it hadn’t been a capital case in the first place. What would the original trial have looked like without the bullet fragment testimony and without the the testimony of six of the non-police witnesses? Very, very different, presumably.
I despise the attempts at playing this off as liberal bedwetting. I’d hardly term Bob Barr and William S. Sessions as “Davis supporters.” How about A Justice System That’s Not Broken supporter? How about a Hey, Let’s Not Execute People Who Have Been Convicted on Flimsy Testimony Supporter. How about Capital Punishment Is Immoral Supporter?
I have read a good portion of Moore’s decision and I respectfully disagree that the evidence against Davis merits the death penalty. Make of it what you will.
No. That’s simply a mistatement of fact.
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Of course there are. There always are. Rare indeed are the cases where the defense says:“Nope. You got me. Please give me the death penalty.”
Well, the judge who heard all this evidence concluded it wouldn’t.
I’m a liberal (the non-bedwetting type though). I’m not playing it off as liberal bedwetting.
It’s your opinion and you are welcome to it and to share it. I disagree with you and am not all that impressed with some of your conclusionary statements, but c’est la vie. Since I didn’t work on this case at all, I tend to put more faith in the competent judges, jury, clemency boards, and appellate courts that actually heard the evidence rather than talking heads, the defense attorneys, and, to be honest, posters on message boards.
Don’t be an idiot. I wasn’t referring to the defense and you know it.
Really? What do you mean then by characterizing opponents of the death penalty in this case as “Davis supporters”? Are you meaning to imply that Bob Barr, William S. Sessions, Amnesty International, the Pope, among the many, many others, legal scholar and ordinary citizens alike, are generally supportive of convicted murderers? The evidence may have been presented before but it’s also been misrepresented and spun by those eager to see an execution. Witness Ann Coulter and Starving Artist.
There’s enough partisan hyperbole going around.
So you see judges, clemency boards, and appellate courts as infallible? You’ve determined with 100% that there was no mistake, no miscarriage of justice in this case and deem the people I noted above as talking heads or defense attorneys. Got it.
No, but you were referring to people who accepted what the defense said without considering what the judge ruled.
Says the poster who tried to portray me as dismissive of “liberal bedwetting”.
You can generally tell what I say by reading my posts. Nowhere in there did I ever say that they were infallible, nor do I believe it. That’s just a strawman you’re desperate to create.
No, once again you don’t “got it”. What you do have is a penchant for creating strawmen and misrepresenting my statements.
Do you ever feel the evidence merits the death penalty?
Williams’ testimony also established that he had seen a wanted poster with Davis’ picture on it prior to identifying Davis in a photo spread 10 days after the shooting and that he was only 60% sure that Davis was the shooter. You left that part out. He also stated that he was certain as to the shooter’s shirt, but later indicated his uncertainty. Williams testified that he *felt *pressure by the police to identify Davis and contradicts himself later testifying that nobody pressured him. Judge Moore concludes that as coerced testimony goes, Williams’ testimony is not favorable enough to believe that it actually is coerced testimony. Essentially saying: It couldn’t possibly have been coerced as surely, cops could have coerced something better than that (pp. 129-130). 
This is not a recantation, so says Judge Moore because he didn’t admit to falsifying his testimony which is different than just being uncertain about it.
So, let me get this straight. Sapp’s original testimony is credible, but his recanted testimony is not credible? He admitted to fabricating at least a portion his testimony out of revenge for a previous feud between him and Davis. So, is he a credible witness or not? Let me clarify that Sapp did not have evidence of anything but his testimony was solely what he alleged Davis said to him. If his testimony in the appeal is not deemed credible, why is any portion of his testimony to which he did not admit to falsifying deemed credible? He’s an admitted liar.
But the police (who threatened to kick down Davis’ mother’s door) say they never coerced Sapp, so on that basis Sapp’s allegations of coercion are not credible.
Again, Moore supposes here that Mr. Collins’ testimony is not credible on the basis that if he had been coerced, he would have provided more compelling testimony against Davis in addition to the testimony of the police department that there was no coercion which he finds to be credible.
Of course, there is no reason to call into question the tactics of a police department that would lose evidence to improper procedures. There is absolutely no reason to believe that black teenagers from a place like Yamacraw Village (the projects) would be intimidated by police.
I already called Coulter’s misrepresentations of the case.
And I have looked at those statements and I see doubt. Obviously not for Judge Moore, but a significant number of other reputable judges and legal scholars seem to think so and that gives me pause. I can see why it wouldn’t give Coulter pause, but then she is not someone whose opinion I find convincing, compelling or logical in the least given her recent tweets on the subject.
You know, that’s an interesting assumption there. Do you, like Starving Artist seems to, believe that people like those at Amnesty International and Bob Barr and William Sessions don’t review court documents? That they base their positions on what the media presents to them or solely what the defense presents?
Personally, I find it very compelling that someone with whom I agree very little politically who supports capital punishment (I don’t) and who voted to further restrict the appeals process has grave misgivings about the validity of the death penalty in this case. I would not expect that from Bob Barr. I would not expect that from Sessions. I do expect it from Amnesty International, but I’ve reviewed their position and it doesn’t strike me as particularly uninformed of the prosecution’s case or Judge Moore’s findings. I do expect it from the Pope who is opposed to capital punishment, but I’m not Catholic so that doesn’t sway me much.
Correct if I’m wrong then, but you seem to keep coming back to Judge Moore’s legal opinion as if he were the ultimate arbiter of truth whenever I present other reasoned positions of experienced legal minds as compelling. Is it possible that Moore’s conclusions are simply wrong even if his judicial determination is technically correct?
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
Do you ever feel the evidence merits the death penalty?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. But this isn’t one of those cases.
However, on a personal level, I believe that capital punishment is immoral as well as ineffective for its greater cost to society, which includes not only its economic toll but the degradation of social values.
It does give me even greater distress, however, that our justice system allows innocent people to be executed, whether the case here or not.
I didn’t say that it was “compelling”, only that it added to the likelihood of his guilt rather than subtracted from it.
What it was was a pair of apparently bloody shorts, resembling the ones Davis wore when he shot McPhail, recovered from the dryer of Davis’ home. The prosecution wanted to do DNA testing on the blood, but the defense successfully fought to prevent this. (Apparently it was eventually attempted as part of the last appeals, but there was not enough DNA remaining for conclusive results.)
So in sum, not compelling, but tending to add to the likelihood of guilt.