ATLANTA (ABP) – More than 3,000 clergy and religious leaders from various faith traditions have endorsed a letter seeking clemency for a death-row inmate scheduled for execution in Georgia Sept. 29.
Troy Davis
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Organizers plan to hand-deliver the letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles in advance of a Sept. 19 clemency hearing for Troy Anthony Davis, an African-American man convicted of murdering a white police officer in Savannah in 1989.
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty and Amnesty International USA collected the signatures online over the course of several months. It is believed to be the largest single set of endorsements from faith leaders for clemency in the modern history of the United States.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of the murder of 27-year-old police officer Mark Alan McPhail, who was shot several times while trying to assist a beating victim in a Burger King parking lot. Nine witnesses testified they saw Davis commit the crime. Seven later recanted, saying police pressured them into testifying. One of the two who did not publicly recant allegedly told family and friends he is the actual murderer.
High-profile advocates including former President Jimmy Carter say Davis should receive a new trial. Fifty-one members of Congress -– all Democrats -– wrote the parole board recently expressing “considerable doubts” about his guilt.
Davis, who has been on death row for 20 years, has won postponement of his execution by clemency three times, most recently in 2008.
While the religious leaders do not address whether they believe Davis is guilty or innocent, they say executing him amid such doubt “would be a gamble that we believe is both unnecessary and unconscionable.”
Amnesty International has designated Friday, Sept. 16, as International Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis with street demonstrations, social-networking posts and other visible signs of solidarity.
Most people endorsing the letter are rank-and-file ministers, but public figures included Ron Sider of Palmer Theological Seminary and Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Baptists include Laura Barclay, social ministries director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina; Glenn Hinson of the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky and Joshua Speight, associate coordinator for missions at the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship.
Others included April Baker, co-pastor of Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn.; Timothy McDonald, pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta; Peter Carman, pastor of Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C.; Connie Stinson, pastor of Luther Rice Memorial Baptist Church in Silver Spring, Md.; and Lanny Peters and Melanie Vaughn-West, co-pastors of Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.