Updates: Troy Davis

From: Sharpton coming to Georgia to pray for Troy Davis
By JEFFRY SCOTT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published Saturday, September 20, 2008

New York civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is on his way to Georgia. He plans to pray on death row with ... Troy Anthony Davis Saturday night and afterwards hold a press conference outside Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Sharpton is the latest prominent figure to take up the cause of Davis, 39, who is scheduled for execution by lethal injection Tuesday night. Last week Davis lost his appeal for clemency to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Former Georgia congressman and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr wrote a letter to the parole board this week asking it to reconsider the Davis case because, he wrote, “the doubts about the Davis case have not been resolved, and fears that Georgia might execute an innocent man have not been allayed.”
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Other News -- Atlanta -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called today on the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to reverse its decision to deny clemency to Troy Anthony Davis, convicted for an alleged murder of a Savannah police officer in 1991. "This case illustrates the deep flaws in the application of the death penalty in this country," said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. "Executing Troy Davis without a real examination of potentially exonerating evidence risks taking the life of an innocent man and would be a grave miscarriage of justice. The citizens of Georgia should demand the highest standards of proof when our legal system condemns on our behalf a man or woman to die."

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the NAACP said Saturday they are planning another rally at 11 a.m. Monday in front of the Georgia State Capitol to urge the parole board to reconsider or the state Supreme Court to stay the execution of Davis while his case is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case has attracted worldwide attention, with calls to stop his execution from Pope Benedict XVI, Amnesty International and Nobel Peace Prize-Winner Desmond Tutu. Rallies have been held as far away as Paris, France.