Cast Your Vote in the Case of Georgia v. Troy Anthony Davis

Assuming you have read the posts and comments herein, or have otherwise educated yourself about the case, how would you as a juror cast your vote in the case of Troy Anthony Davis?

customer surveys

The Postmortem Evaluation of Troy Anthony Davis: Burden of Proof

I think I'm going to make this the last post on the Davis case, at least for a while. There's a big point I want to make still, so I guess I'll have to do it herein, toot sweet.

I begin by shamelessly bragging that the New York Times linked to the Yellow and White series, the one that I wrote and the one which you guys populated with insightful comments. From their opinion pages for 26 September, Ross Douthat makes the link in his post Notes on the Death Penalty.

1) After a week’s worth of reading, I remain agnostic about Davis’s actual guilt or innocence. I recommend reading Charles Lane (and via Lane, Judge William T. Moore) for a strong argument that the justice system got this case right. Out of the numerous pieces arguing that Davis’s execution was a miscarriage of justice, this series of posts by the Skeptical Juror stands out for its attention to detail and its distinctive approach to the evidence. If you pressed me sharply to take a position, I would incline to the view that the Davis was guilty. But guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Given everything that’s come out since the original trial, I think that a new jury should have been asked to make that call.

If you have the time, I suggest you read Charles Lane's article. Charles is reasonably confident that Davis was guilty, based in large measure on the trust he put in Judge Moore as a student of the case and as a Judge of stature.

I recognized Charles Lane's name. I've seen him on Fox News with Bret Baier. Charles is occasionally on the show as an analyst, and he seems to be insightful and level-headed. I like him. I consider it an honor, actually, that my writing is juxtaposed against his.

As far as I know, it's the first time I've been mentioned in the NY Times. It's probably going to be the last too, due to the snarky remark to follow. Until recently, I distrusted the Times writing as heavily biased and scientifically inaccurate. I now see that they are a publication of discerning taste.

Earlier, the Yellow and White series had been linked to by Ace Of Spades, a conservative blogger of some prominence. The link below goes to Part 1 of the series.

Troy Davis Executed
Dead Now: Executed at 11:08.

This blog post (and its sequels) details a more complicated case than Ann Coulter's column suggested.

[Insightful discussion regarding the series here.]

If you like CSI, or Law & Order, especially those ambiguous-ending episodes, the whole murky mess is worth a read.

Hahahahaha. I assume he meant the case was a murky mess, not my writing. Either way is fine with me though.

Ace juxtaposed the Yellow and White series against an article by Ann Coulter. Unlike Charles Lane, Ann is a provocative windbag. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

If you have the stomach, I suggest you read Ann's post. Ann is not only absolutely certain that Davis was guilty, she is absolutely certain that we have never, ever, ever (since 1950) executed an innocent person.

I notice that the people so anxious to return this sociopathic cop-killer to the street don't live in his neighborhood.

There's a reason more than a dozen courts have looked at Davis' case and refused to overturn his death sentence. He is as innocent as every other executed man since at least 1950, which is to say, guilty as hell.

Here's the interesting point, for those of you who sense newspapers are losing their monopoly. The link from Ace of Spades brought 776 hits to this blog. The NY Times brought 77.

Holy Factor of Ten, Batman! Now you know why I didn't make any snarky remarks about Ace.

Okay. Now it's time for me to justify the self-serving writing above by making it relevant to what follows. Here goes.

The point I am pleased to make here is that I've seen better analysis of the Troy Anthony Davis case in the comments to this blog than I saw in either Charles Lane's or Ann Coulter's article. You guys know the details of the case better, you constructed your arguments in accordance with those facts, and many of you admitted to uncertainty even after making your best case.

Another name for that last characteristic is an open mind. The wrongful conviction problem will not be solved by people who can't conceive they were ever wrong.

To prove my case that the analysis in the comments to this blog was superior to that of Charle's Lane and Ann Coulter, I offer a comment by Reader R. Lee.

A SUCCINCT EXPLANATION FOR A GUILTY VERDICT

This comes only after many scenarios have been considered, several of which I've not seen considered elsewhere. I will post again to discuss an opinion of how I think the whole night went down and some theories I would have explored had I been Mr. Davis' defense attorney.  

The Shooting of Officer McPhail, 1:08 am, August 19, 1989: 

Like everyone else, my initial efforts were spent in taking in all of the pieces of evidence, and the shirt colors worn that night were no small part. But, the questionable issue of clothing, the widely varying physical descriptions and the highly suspect photo and lineup identifications after one suspect had fingered the other had me look beyond all of those factors. Wasn't there convincing testimony to reveal who shot McPhail without using facial indentification, physical characteristics and clothing? 

You could almost call this 'the case within the case'. The crux of it all lies with three undisputable acts and three very credible testimonies. Everything else is background noise.

Troy Davis (at trial): Sylvester Coles argued with Larry Young continuously from the parking lot of the pool room and convenience store for two blocks into the Burger King parking lot as Davis trailed close behind. As Davis was leaving the parking lot (in the direction of the bank building) he saw Collins running up ahead of him in the same direction.

Larry Young (2 hours after the shooting): He was trailed by three people into the Burger King parking lot, arguing with one of them since leaving the pool room parking lot over a block away. He [Young] was looking at the guy he'd been arguing with when another person hit him in the side of the head. The third person was not involved in the altercation.

Larry Young (at trial): The person who hit him was definitely not the person with whom he had argued.

Antoine Williams (2 hours after the shooting): Three persons followed Mr. Young into the Burger King parking lot. A person hit Mr. Young with a gun. A police officer runs after the person with the gun. The two unarmed persons are running away as gunman attempts to put gun in pants. As police officer nears gunman, the gunman shoots the police officer.

Davis identifies by name the only two suspects in this case, himself and Sylvester Coles, and he exonerates Collins from being either the person who was arguing with Mr. Young and/or the person who hit Mr. Young, as does Coles' testimony. 

Davis as well identifies Sylvester Coles as being the person who was arguing with Mr. Young. Young, though he admits he might be sketchy on identifying the suspects visually, is emphatic about stating that the person who hit him was not the person who was harassing him verbally. Thus, it is clear that Sylvester Coles was arguing with Mr. Young and that Troy Davis hit Mr. Young on the side of his face with the butt of a gun. 

There were actually three witnesses who on the night of the shooting stated that the person who hit Mr. Young also shot McPhail (actually there was a fourth, but the fourth did not see the first shot that was fired). However, two of them were on the east side of the parking lot, and were momentarily distracted by Mr. Young's dash for help before looking back to see the officer get shot. Antoine Williams was in his car on the other side of the commotion with a full view of all that occurred. 

Williams clearly asserts (and we have no reason to doubt his veracity whatsoever) that the only weapon he saw was that which the assailant [Troy Davis] had used to hit Mr. Young, whereupon the assailant [Troy Davis] was attempting to put the gun back in his pants and "appeared to panic" as the officer approached. The assailant [Troy Davis] turned and shot the officer [McPhail].

Case closed.

Reader R. Lee clearly has a better grasp of the case details than do either Lane or Coulter, at least based on their writing. Also, Reader Lee knows his readers have a better grasp on the case details than either Lane or Coulter can expect of their readers. That's why their writing is fluffier, less focused. That's why they're so willing to ultimately relinquish their decision to Judge Moore or give in to their confirmation bias. That's why they can't get to the heart of the matter.  

Here's what I like about Reader Lee's analysis. He provided the clearest, most organized, argument for guilt based on the statements and testimony of people who actually witnessed at least some part of the crime.

Here's where I think Reader Lee went wrong.

1. He began by trying to preempt all evidence and arguments that might contradict his scenario. "Everything else is background noise." See. While many of us try to wrestle with the shirt swapping business, and while many of us have at least some concern about the statements and testimony due to multiple, similar claims of police coercion, Reader Lee simply declares by fiat that "Everything else is background noise."  That's a pretty easy way out. I think it would have been better had he simply made clear that he intended to focus, for the purpose of his argument, on the statements and testimonies of those who witnessed the crime. He could have then worried about rationalizing his conclusion with all the other evidence later.

2. He attempted to lead his readers to an irrefutable conclusion by building his foundation block by irrefutable block. That's good, except some of his blocks were crappy. Consider his claim that we have no reason whatsoever to doubt the veracity of Burger King Employee Antoine Williams. Hahahahaha. Good one.

Williams first said that the shooter wore a white or blue t-shirt, that the tint on his windows kept him from being sure which. Heck, I doubted his veracity at that point. In his second statement, he added that his window tint would not have prevented him from distinguishing yellow from white or blue. That's bullshit of course. I knew by his second statement he was pretty much telling the police what they wanted to hear. Then he testified at trial that Davis was the shooter and was wearing a yellow or white shirt.  Good one Antoine. On cross, he changed his mind and said that he must have been right earlier when he said the shooter was wearing a blue or white shirt. In his recantation, he said his windows were so tinted he couldn't make out any colors. Now how did Reader Lee, who read all the case information, get all the way from that incorrect / perjurious testimony to no doubt about his veracity?

Consider also the faith he put in Larry Young's statement, despite Young's recantation that he was both drunk and drugged. Recall that Young was going to the store to get more beer, given they had already gone through the first, or second, or third batch. Which Larry Young does Reader Lee choose to believe: the one who  claimed to see everything clearly or the one who claimed to be blitzed?

3. Reader R. Lee, who made a good but imperfect case of guilt, finished by boldly claiming "Case closed."

And so finally, blissfully, Reader Lee's "case closed" assertion leads me to the point with which I choose to close this series.

Those who favor the death penalty and those who want to believe we have never executed an innocent person must always be sure. For them, each and every case in the past and in the future must always be "Case closed." If they ever allow themselves to believe that an innocent person has in fact been executed, they must then change their stand on the death penalty, or they must argue that it is acceptable to execute a few  (just a few, mind you) innocent people.

I'm not claiming that Reader Lee is a death penalty proponent. He makes clear elsewhere that he believes Davis should not have been executed. And I don't know if Reader Lee believes we have ever executed an innocent person. I will say, however, that I think his "Case closed" statement belies some wishful thinking.

Reader Lee is in good company, however. Charles Lane and Ann Coulter are also confident that Davis was guilty. For those two as well, the Davis case is closed.

For myself, I choose to remain skeptical.

The Postmortem Evaluation of Troy Anthony Davis: Shirt-Swapping

In the previous postmortem post, I took a look at how well we were able to confine ourselves to the facts of the case, and to construct a logical arguments of guilt or innocence. I think we did pretty good. Some of us have room for improvement. I include myself in the group.

I'm apparently a slow learner, too. Last night I posted retroactively on the Steven Woods case. I allowed myself to go in for some poorly supported bad character claims, and I'll have to clean that up when I get a chance.

Tonight, I want to talk about how we did on the Sylvestor Coles shirt-swapping issue.

As I evaluate cases, I find most to be routine examples of man's inhumanity to others. It seems, though, that the ones with a potential for wrongful conviction have one or more tells that catch my eye and draw me in.

With respect to Byron Case, it was a mis-transcribed audio recording that made me begin to seriously question the State's case. It was the fact that the victim died with her eyes open that caused me to discover a little-known time-of-death marker that convinced me Byron is factually innocent. (I just finished a 19 page amicus letter in support of his petition for absolute pardon. I'll be sharing that before too long.)

In the Michael Ledford case, it was two missing candle holders and a strange looking circuit breaker that told me that Michael did not kill his one year old son via arson. (I just finished drafting a 147 page petition for absolute pardon for his case. I'll be sharing that sometime down the road.)

In the Cameron Todd Willingham case, it struck me that the State had a serious, serious conservation of mass problem. Willingham allegedly covered a large bedroom, a hallway, both sides of a door, and a porch with enough lighter fluid that it formed puddles and soaked deep into the flooring. They only found one small empty container of lighter fluid, and that was by the barbeque.

That conservaton of mass problem and of course the requisite lying ass snitch.

In Cory Maye, the case was littered with tells. Littered. A cop had been killed, however, and the police were going to see to it that Cory Maye paid the ultimate price. On a high note, Cory Maye walked free just a month or so ago.

Hank Skinner: Unknown fingerprints on a trash bag that held the bloody knife; untested DNA from a rape kit and from beneath the victim's fingernails. No scratches on Hank.

Larry Swearingen: Undigested tater tots and McNuggets in victim's stomach.

Frances Elaine Newton: A phone call reporting a gunshot that didn't fit into the police timeline.

Johnny Frank Garrett: A bent butterknife that the State claimed Garrett used to strangle a nun. (Who would strangle someone with a butterknife?)

As I worked on the Troy Davis case, two tells set off claxons in my skeptical head. The shirt swapping story and Dorothy Ferrell recognizing Davis' photo on the seat of a police car that just happened to stop by on an unrelated matter. Hahahahaha. Good one.

The one that set off a chime rather than a claxon is Officer MacPhail allegedly running right past Coles to confront Davis, even though MacPhail allegedly responded to the screams and did not see who struck the beer-hoarding Young. More than a couple of you readers homed in on that one.

The one that I completely missed, until Reader R. Lee pointed it out to me, was how everyone knew the color of one shirt (white) but almost no one mentioned the color of the other shirt (presumably yellow.)  "The only pre-Coles statement to include the color Yellow in it is Young's."

Good one, R. Lee.

As I already mentioned, before ambling about randomly for a while, I intend to focus (like a laser) in this post on the shirt swapping incident. It's time I get on with it.

Let's look first what I had to say about the shirt-swapping incident.

Had I been a juror, claxons would have been blaring in my head when the first one of them testified about the shirt swap. It's a transparently bogus story. My thought would have been that they feared someone had seen Coles in a white shirt or Davis in a yellow shirt. Any such sighting would be evidence that Coles, not Davis, was the shooter. So they concocted the story about the shirt swap to create plausible deniability. "Sure, my brother wasn't wearing the yellow shirt after the shooting, because I gave him a fresh one."

When the second one of them testified about the shirt swap, I would have hit the ceiling. I would have known then, without doubt, that they were lying. Coles said at trial that he gave the yellow shirt to Davis because that was the only other shirt he had at the house. Well that was certainly unfortunate for Davis. Recall that Coles had just been running for 15 to 20 minutes all the way from the crime scene to his sister's house.

Then it would hit me as odd that Coles kept shirts at his sister's house so that he could change after playing basketball, but the only shirt that was at her house was a red, white, and blue collared shirt. Seems like a limited and odd collection. Perhaps, I might think, he had taken all the others home with him to wash them.

Nope, that wouldn't be it. His sister said she washed the shirts for him. Remember? She washed the yellow shirt the next day, before giving it to the police. One wouldn't any unsightly incriminating evidence left on the shirt. How embarrassing!

The testimony that would have really done it for me, however, was when the sister said she laid out three shirts for her brother to change into. That's two more than her brother said were available. Why did Coles give Davis the sweaty, stinky t-shirt when he had just selected from a collection of three clean shirts his sister had laid out for him? 

I couldn't come up with a reasonable alternative explanation for the shirt swap. I figured they were lying, if for no other reason than they couldn't keep the number of shirts straight, but I couldn't figure out what they were tying to accomplish. I really jumped the shark when I suggested she washed the yellow shirt to remove incriminating evidence. I'll tell you why once I talk about how you guys also stumbled on the shirt swapping issue.

I'll begin with those of you who argued it must have gone down just as Coles and his sister said. That's a fair number of you, actually. It seems to me that you simply ignored the fact it couldn't have gone down like the two of them said, because the two of them said it differently. Coles said he gave Davis the yellow shirt because it was the only other one he had. His sister said she laid out three shirts for Coles. One or both of them is lying. That's the tell. You missed the tell.

You can try to argue that they may have lied about the number of shirts, but they didn't lie about the rest of the story. You can try it. The rest of us aren't buying. We shouldn't be executing someone based on the claims of people who provide perjurious testimony.

Reader Catherine Turley homed in on the shirt-swapping problem after Part 3, even before I wrote of it in Part 4. Here's a fraction of what she wrote:

if i believe coles was telling the truth about the shirt, and didn't do the killing, then he would have been knowingly implicating himself by giving the yellow shirt to troy (unless he's really stupid). if coles was telling the truth, but did do the killing, he was trying to set up his friend. if he was lying, and did do the killing, he was trying to implicate his friend. and if he was lying, and didn't do the killing, then he still has something to hide. looks like coles is guilty of something. i'll have to read over it again.

I'm smiling. I had to read her comment over again just as she had to read my writing over again. Anyway, she offered the thought that Coles was trying to implicate Troy by giving him the yellow shirt.

Reader Anonymous followed Reader Catherine Turley's comment with a similar thought, I think. He (or she) wrote in part:

A very confusing stage of events to say the least. My question is, it's stated that both Coles and his sister confess that when Davis arrived shirtless Coles gave troy his yellow shirt. The shirt he was wearing at the scene of the crime. I presume this acknowledgment is in the police records. Coles testified that Davis was in fact the shooter... he being an eye witness. He knows Troy just shot and possibly killed a cop and when troy asks him for a shirt to put on he gives him his crime scene garb. That's like giving him his identification. It's telling everyone that the guy in the yellow shirt killed the cop, the yellow shirt that the innocent Red Coles was wearing.

So at least I think Reader Anonymous agreed with Reader Catherine Turley.

Then I commented on my own post, complimenting them on their clear-headed thinking.

I like your analysis about why an innocent Sylvester Coles would not have given the actual shooter a shirt that would clear the shooter and increased the chance that he (Coles) would be implicated. Very clever.

Wow. What a dunderhead!

Then Reader Anonymous is back suggesting the yellow shirt was washed because it may have had gunshot residue on it so they had Davis wear it so that they could say any gunshot residue on the shirt came from Davis.  And I bought into that one as well, with the following brain-dead comment.

Good on you. I hadn't thought of the gunshot residue angle. I thought it strange they would invent a story about Davis putting on the shirt then soon taking it off, but I couldn't figure out why.

At least now, since your comment, I am aware of a viable hypothesis.

Brilliant!

Finally, a different Reader Anonymous set us straight.

Why would there be gunshot residue on the yellow shirt? The one thing everyone agrees on is that the shooter was wearing a white shirt.

Thanks Reader Anonymous for the whack on the head. I needed that. There wouldn't be gunshot residue on the yellow shirt, and there wouldn't be DNA on the yellow shirt (as others suggested), and Davis wouldn't be incriminated if he was caught in the yellow shirt.

Here's the deal, as I now see it, assuming you still trust my ability to reason logically.

Either the shirt swapping story is true or it's not. (So far, so good.) If it's true, then Coles was wearing the yellow shirt. (I think I'm okay so far.) If it's false, then Coles was probably wearing the white shirt. (I'm getting a little nervous.) But Coles' sister gave the police a yellow shirt, one that she had recently washed. (Now I'm getting a bit more nervous.) It's not clear, however, that Coles had a yellow shirt. In the false shirt-swapping scenario, he didn't have a yellow shirt at the crime scene. Unless he coincidentally had a yellow t-shirt kept at his sister's house, they would have needed to get hold of one somehow. (Sweating bullets here.)

At first, they didn't realize they needed one, so they didn't mention the shirt swapping story in their initial interviews. But then, Larry Young later identified Coles as the man in the yellow shirt, after earlier identifying someone unrelated to the case. (I'm getting ready to go out on a limb.)  Furthermore a bunch of people had told the police that the guy in the white (or light-colored) shirt was the shooter.

It was at that point that Sylvester Coles realized he had two big problems. First, a number of people had seen him after the shooting in a white shirt. Second, he didn't have a yellow shirt. (It's too late to stop now.) So they simply went out and bought a nice yellow shirt. It looked new, so they aged it using a number of techniques, including washing it. (I wonder if they're buying it.) The story about Davis showing up wasn't necessary, it was just a nice twist. Claiming that Davis showed up without a shirt is all the incrimination they needed to provide to the police. Claiming they gave him the yellow shirt simply added color and realism to the story. They couldn't let him keep it, though, because they had to give a yellow shirt to the police to prove that Coles was wearing one that night.

Whew!

So, finally, how do I assess our ability to make sense of the shirt-swapping tell?

Not so good. I think most of us were pretty careless in our logic on this point. I'm not sure we have it figured out yet.

I think I'll wrap this postmortem up with one more post. I think I'll write about how we attempted to figure out who was telling the truth: those who claimed coercion versus those who denied coercion.

Good night.

The Postmortem Evaluation of Troy Anthony Davis: Cherry-Picking

In this introspective postmortem, I hope to assess the recent writing on this blog related to the Troy Davis case. I intend to assess both my writing and yours, as reflected in the comments.

I begin by complementing you, the readers, for the quality of your comments. Compared to the comments I see on other sites, your comments are quite impressive. You come across as well-informed and logically consistent. You rely on reasoned argument rather than venom. I am seriously impressed.

For comparison, I'll provide a small sample of comments from another site.

May this scum rest in hell!

I would not call the justice system the scum if by some chance this guy is in fact innocent.  These people who are now recanting are the ones who testified and played a significant role in sending him to death row. If he is innocent they would be the scum in my eyes.

New evidence!!  Now where have I heard that shyte before? Oh yeah, it was in our case wasn't it?   Not really any new evidence at all.  Just people willing to perjure themselves to get another scumbag off death row with an innocence claim.

Move to the head of the line POS scum.

I got my popcorn.  This might be good.

Welcome to Hell rubbish Davis.

One can really learn a lot from such erudition.

I don't claim that no one has ever commented in such childish fashion on this blog, but the exceptions are pretty rare. Not long ago, I noticed this comment on The Impending Execution of Martin Robles.

We all know you Americans aren't courageous enough to face the world without your guns and bombs.

Your own "God" says killing is wrong. It is always wrong. True strength and true power lie in forgiveness and compassion.

But you're all so scared that you'd rather twist around your own God's words that be brave and true.

- A contemptuous New Zealander

To which I replied:

To the contemptuous New Zealander,

In case you haven't noticed, this site focuses on wrongful conviction issues in The United States of America. I'm liberal in allowing comments even remotely related to the case or issue addressed in the post. I want to encourage discussion.

No one, however, should mistake my criticism of our justice system for disdain of country. I am unabashed in my love for this country, for reasons far too lengthy and powerful to enumerate here.

Your comment about Americans lacking courage is demonstrably absurd. Perhaps you simply are ignorant of history and current events. Perhaps you simply are incapable of preventing your bias from being expressed in such unflattering fashion.

In either case, I ask that in any future comments to this blog you attempt to limit your point to the case or issue at hand. I ask also that you attempt to rely on reasoned argument rather than embarrassing blather.

In return, I promise not to change my high regard for New Zealand and its people based on your poor representation thereof.

Compare now the comments above with one from Jeff Cox. After complimenting me (which is not a completely ineffective technique), he disagrees with me. He then leaves open the possibility of further discussion. He has an opinion, but he seems willing to listen to others.

First, I want to thank Skeptical Juror for posting all this analysis of the Troy Davis case. I'm going to bookmark this site and enjoy the other analyses offered here. Good work.

That said, I disagree with your conclusions on the Davis case as expressed in your posts. I know that you've tried to simplify the case and I appreciate that, but I think you've still made it too complicated, specifically with reference to the shirt-switching. Maybe I'm missing something, but this is how I see it:

1. Davis and Coles were present at the shooting, by their own admission.

2. One was wearing a white shirt, the other a yellow shirt.

3. The eyewitnesses agree (though this case is another exhibit as to the inherent unreliability of eyewitness testimony) that the shooter was wearing a white shirt.

4. Coles produced the (or at least A) yellow shirt.

Therefore:

5. Davis must have been wearing the white shirt.

Now, the dubious shirt exchange becomes probative if it was actually Davis who was wearing the yellow shirt and he gave it to Coles. But your posts do not indicate that such a scenario was alleged, only that Coles was lying about the shirt exchange, though the exact nature of that lie was is not addressed.

So, the logic of the conviction is as I explained above. Where am I going wrong?

Good on you, Jeff.

On the other hand, I'm not as impressed with Malcolm Trent's comment. He also disagrees with me, but that's not significant. He relies on sarcasm, but then so do I on more than rare occasion. His comment, though, relies too heavily on trivializing the arguments of the other side. He also sets up weak straw men which he then bravely swats aside. His summary of the opposing point of view is simply wrong. Finally, it seems as if his mind is made up, and further discussion would be unlikely to change it.

Consider also that there were many more witnesses that you chose to cherry-pick through and you'll find that your narrative is quite shallow, though I appreciate your sounding board.
Let me see if I can sum up the Troy Davis defense succinctly...

Mr. Coles shot the officer, then quickly fabricated a story with his sister which did not include an alibi, but rather instead sinisterly focused on a wardrobe change that they had no forewarning would be so substantial. They then masterminded a plan to hand Davis' shirt to the police in an effort to provide their own version of events and then frame up Davis in a fake series of events. The police, now in a tizzy and with knee-jerk reaction then rounded up a series of innocent ignorant bystanders and brow-beat them into falsifying testimony, continued to lean on these witnesses for two years until the trial occurred at which time all of the witnesses still feared for their freedom and dutifully offered fake testimony to a majority black jury who ruled then found Davis guilty because their were 7 black jurors that were very biased against the black man. Then, after 22 years, numerous judges who are intimately familiar with the case including the Supreme Court of the United States all had such a raging hard-on for Troy Davis that they all became complicit in the erroneous execution of an innocent man.

Would you care to buy the Brooklyn Bridge? I'll cut you a sweet deal on it.

Despite my criticism, I nonetheless consider Malcolm's comment to be quite valuable. His accusation that I cherry-picked the data initially caused an adverse reaction on my part. I considered posting an essay explaining how I hadn't cherry picked the witnesses. As I thought about it more, I realized he was right, and I offer the following mea culpa.

In my Troy Anthony Davis database, I have the names (or anonymous identifiers) of 38 people. There's no way I could discuss them all without making the series more of a morass than it was. I had to decide who I was going to discuss, and who I was going to exclude. So far so good.

When I decided to simplify the case by limiting discussion, at least initially, to those unbiased witnesses who gave statements and identified shooters only before Sylvester Coles went to the police, I narrowed my problem of telling the story, and I still think it was a good approach. So far, so good.

However, even within that much smaller subset of witness, I cherry-picked. I did not include, at that point, the testimony of Darrell Collins. He complicated my story because I could not fit him neatly into my premise. I feared losing you, the reader, as I tried to explain how his testimony really did fit the simplified story I hoped to tell.

My problem was that Darrell Collins stated initially that Davis was wearing the white shirt, and he never explicitly recanted that specific point. Judge Moore picked up on that and dismissed his affidavit because of it.

I discussed Darrell Collins in a later post, when I had an opportunity to counter his statements and testimony with his recantation. I figure his recantation story will clear everything up. Even though he was the third man, I excluded him in my initial discussion. I now believe I was wrong to do so.

Malcolm's comment also made me think about cherry-picking on a larger scale. Malcolm cherry-picked his facts immediately after accusing me of cherry-picking my facts. We all do it. It starts because we can't discuss the entire universe of facts and ideas. We have to pare things down to a specific case, or to a specific aspect of the case, or to specific witnesses, or to specific statements of those witnesses. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with limiting the discussion to a properly selected sub-set of facts. The challenge, however, is to select the facts fairly. When we pick the facts to fit our premise, we engage in cherry-picking.

Malcolm's accusation in fact has substantial relevance to the Troy Davis case. I'm pretty confident, that the Savannah PD engaged in some serious cherry-picking. Once Sylvester Coles showed up and told them "I can give you the name of the cop-killer", the cherry-picking kicked into overdrive. Their resulting behavior is also referred to as target fixation or tunnel vision.

In a recent YouTube question and answer session with The Innocence Project, the staff attorney was asked what she perceived to be the primary cause of wrongful convictions. I anticipated she would say incorrect eye-witness testimony, since bad eye-witness testimony is a factor in more than 70% of the DNA proven wrongful convictions. I was wrong. She said the biggest problem was tunnel vision. Once police decide they have their man, they over-inflate any evidence that points in his direction and dismiss any evidence that points away from him.

For what it's worth, what has been referred to here as cherry picking, target fixation, and tunnel vision has a lofting sounding name. It's called confirmation bias. For those trying to get at the truth, rather than just win the argument, beware the confirmation bias.

In the next post in this postmortem series, which will be probably in two days, I want to discuss what we have written about the infamous shirt swap.

Good night.

The Postmortem Evaluation of Troy Anthony Davis: Intro

Late tonight (or in the wee hours of tomorrow morning), I will begin a postmortem evaluation of the Troy Anthony Davis case. I won't however, be evaluating the people of Georgia, or their police, or their prosecutors, or their judges. I won't be evaluating the U.S. Supreme Court.

I will instead be evaluating us. I will be evaluating you the readers and me the blogger. I will be looking at how we did in assessing the case, to see if we can learn from our mistakes before we are too harsh in judging others for theirs.

Representing me in this postmortem evaluation will be me. I'm concerned about the quality of my representation, but I'm all I've got. Representing you, the now-confused reader, will be those who commented on my five-part Troy Davis series that garnered more attention than any other post or series I have written.

It's not too late to be criticized for your writing or thinking. (It's fun. Really. Trust me.) Overcome your fears of saying something stupid or something brilliant. Add an insightful comment about the case now. And if you comment within the next 20 minutes, I'll throw in the shipping and handling for free.

Maybe you too will be mentioned in the postmortem.

Troy Anthony Davis Executed by the People of Georgia

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

10:57 State Attorney Generals office notifies MacPhail's mother Anneliese "[Davis] is on the gurney, the needle is in."

11:08 Davis pronounced dead.

I Oppose the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis

Troy Davis is will almost certainly die tomorrow at the hands of the people of Georgia. He will die with a needle in his arm, a knife in the heart of Themis, and another indelible stain on our justice system.

I have presented my case in five extended posts, beginning here. At the end of the last of those five posts, I stated that I oppose the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. I do not, however, want my opposition to go any more unnoticed than necessary. I will therefore state my opposition here, briefly and unequivocally.

I take no position one way or the other on the death penalty in general. I vehemently oppose, however, the execution of any person who might reasonably be innocent. I have reviewed almost every execution this year beforehand to determine whether the person might reasonably be innocent. I have stood mute on  each of the 33 executions so far this year except for Eric King (almost certainly innocent), Cary Kerr (possibly innocent), and Richard Bible (almost certainly guilty). I also opposed the execution of Richard Clay (probably innocent, commuted) and Larry Swearingen (absolutely innocent, stayed).

I believe it is substantially more likely that Sylvester Coles murdered Officer MacPhail than it is that Troy Davis murdered him. As a minimum, there is far too much uncertainly in this case to justify an execution.

I therefore oppose the execution of Troy Anthony Davis.

The Yellow and White Case of Troy Anthony Davis: Part 5

It's another late night / early morning post on the Troy Davis case. I'm so tired I'm not even going to caution you to read the previous posts in this series first, much less provide a link to them. I'm just going to begin abruptly.

I ended the last post by explaining why I would have voted not guilty in the case of Troy Anthony Davis, and by claiming that most of you out there would have voted guilty.

For those of you who took umbrage at my claim, for those of you who think I'm placing myself on morally superior high ground that anyone can easily stand upon, answer just a few questions honestly. Please.

Would you risk letting a cop killer run free? Would you be willing to face the family of the slain officer after the trial and tell them that you were pretty sure the defendant was guilty, but the state didn't quite prove it to you beyond a reasonable doubt.

How about a rapist? Would you turn lose a possible rapist to possibly rape again?

How about a child molester? I've had to deal with accused child molesters. Would you return a possible child molester back into society? We all know they that they can't control themselves, that they will destroy the lives of more innocent children if we do not stop them. Would you turn such a person lose if you were concerned he was guilty but believed the state hadn't quite proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt?

How about a baby killer? Would you turn lose a baby killer if you were only almost certain of his guilt? I've had to deal with an accused baby killer as well. I'm dealing with the case now, in fact.

So I ask you. Would you stand by your oath and vote guilty if and only if the State proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt?

I might. I might indeed stand by my oath, and the thought haunts me. I would be livid that the State had put me in such a position, that they would convince me the defendant was probably guilty but did not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. I would be furious. They would have put me in a position of either defiling the Bill of Rights or allowing a potentially dangerous person to walk free. Would I try to live with the possibility that my Guilty vote would put a possibly innocent person behind bars for eternity, or would I live forever in fear that my Not Guilty vote would lead to terrible harm of yet another innocent bystander? Which would it be?

Here's what I hope I would have the courage to do. I hope I would stand by my oath. I  hope I would stand by the Bill of Rights and accept the consequences, whatever they might be. If the State could not, or carelessly failed to meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, I would not bail them out. They could tell me they speak for the victim, and they could tell me that the family of the victim deserves the justice that only I can bring them, but I hope I would not waver.

Beware prosecutors everywhere. If you allow me on the jury, I will follow my oath. I will stand by the Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights. Far too much blood has been spilled to create and defend those rights. Far too many innocent people are in prison today because my fellow jurors failed to respect and honor them.

Let's do this. Put yourself in the place of one of those jurors deliberating the evidence in the Troy Davis case. You have four eye-witnesses identifying Davis in court as the shooter. You have two additional witnesses saying they saw Davis wearing a white T-shirt around the time of the shooting, and two more saying they saw Coles wearing a yellow shirt. You have three other witnesses testifying under oath that Davis confessed to them. You are told repeatedly that none of these people have any reason to lie to you.

Against that, you have Davis and his mother saying he did not wear a white T-shirt that night.

How are you going to vote?

Honestly, how are you going to vote?

Would you vote Not Guilty simply because one of your fellow jurors wouldn't shut up about Coles and his sister not being able to count shirts, because he goes ballistic when you mention the snitch, or because he actually believes four people could all coincidentally pick the same wrong guy out of photo lineups?

When I was younger, I would have probably voted with most of you out there. I'm no longer younger, though. I've been through four criminal juries. I've reviewed many cases. I've worked directly to free innocent people from prison and to keep innocent people from being imprisoned. I've seen too often how the system goes awry, how it hides its dark side from the jury, how it convicts and consumes while wrapping itself in righteousness.

Now that I'm no longer younger, the snitch and the suborned perjury and the miraculous late stage identifications tell me there is much more going on in the background that the State doesn't want us jurors to know. Now that I'm no longer younger, I'll call them on it. I'll vote Not Guilty if I catch them not playing by the rules.

I realize the State is being inconsistent. It is there their [told you I was tired] privilege. They have the ultimate power, but only if we jurors relinquish it to them.

Dorothy Ferrell
Let's consider first the trial testimony of Dorothy Ferrell. I have not spoken of her before. I saved her for now. She was descending the stairs of the Thunderbird Inn when the shooting took place. According to Judge Moore, here's what she testified to in court.

Ms. Ferrell testified at the trial that, on the night of August 18, 1989, she was a guest at the Thunderbird Motel, located across Oglethorpe Avenue from the Burger King. Around 1:00 a.m. on August 19, 1989, she was descending a stairwell at the motel when she heard screaming from the Burger King parking lot. She ran to the sidewalk to get a better view.

From the sidewalk, she saw three men in the Burger King parking lot. As one of the men started running toward the Trust Company Bank property, a police officer entered the parking lot and told the men to stop. As the officer approached, one of the men, who was wearing a light yellow t-shirt, started moving backwards.  Then the third man, who was wearing a white t-shirt and dark shorts, shot the officer. After the officer fell to the ground, the gunman stepped forward, stood over the officer, and fired more bullets at him. 

Finished, the gunman ran toward the Trust Company Bank. At trial, Ms. Ferrell identified Mr. Davis as the individual who shot the officer. Ms. Ferrell also testified that, two days after the shooting, she recognized a photograph of Mr. Davis and identified him as the gunman. According to Ms. Ferrell, she was speaking with a police officer about matters unrelated to the MacPhail shooting when she noticed a photograph of Mr. Davis on the front passenger seat of the officer's cruiser. She informed the officer that she recognized the man in the photograph as Officer MacPhail's murderer. Ms. Ferrell had not seen any pictures of Mr. Davis prior to that identification. A few days later, Ms. Ferrell was shown a photo spread and asked if she recognized the gunman. Ms. Ferrell again identified Mr. Davis. Ms. Ferrell testified that she was pretty confident in the accuracy of her identification.

On cross-examination, Ms. Ferrell testified that the individual in the yellow t-shirt was looking straight at the gunman when he fired the first shot. Ms. Ferrell stated that the gunman passed in front of the Trust Company Bank building while fleeing. She was then impeached with her police statement, in which she claimed that the gunman ran behind the Trust Company bank building.

Ms. Ferrell was also questioned on variations between her police statement and trial testimony regarding when the individuals in the yellow and white t-shirts started running. Finally, Ms. Ferrell admitted that the portion of her police statement recounting how Officer MacPhail had run the shooter off the Burger King property earlier in the day was incorrect. She explained that she had not seen Officer MacPhail run the shooter off the property, only some individuals dressed like the shooter. Ms. Ferrell opined that the inconsistency was due to a misunderstanding by the officer taking her statement. 

Also on cross-examination, Ms. Ferrell was challenged regarding her prior descriptions of the shooter. In her police statement, Ms. Ferrell recalled that the shooter was six feet tall with a narrow face and slender build, while she described the shooter as slightly taller than her height—five feet—and with a medium build when she testified in Recorder's Court. In Recorder's Court, Ms. Ferrell testified that the shooter had lighter colored skin than her. However, Ms. Ferrell admitted that she and Mr. Davis had about the same skin color, while Mr. Coles' skin color was much lighter that hers. Ms. Ferrell did state that she would not describe Mr. Coles' skin color as light, but rather as "red." Also, Ms. Ferrell admitted that, despite testifying in Recorder's Court that the shooter had a narrow face, she never saw the shooter face-on, seeing only his left and right profiles. Finally, Ms. Ferrell testified that she saw Mr. Davis on television prior to her identification of his photograph.

On redirect-examination, Ms. Ferrell explained a few of the inconsistencies between her various statements. Ms. Ferrell clarified that, in Recorder's Court, she stated the shooter was a little taller than Mr. Davis attorney, not a little taller than herself. Also, Ms. Ferrell explained that she did not see only left and right profiles of the gunman's face. While she never observed his face straight on, Ms. Ferrell saw enough of the shooter's face at various angles to recognize that he had a narrow face.

Ms. Ferrell also admitted during cross-examination that she had a number of prior criminal convictions for shoplifting and trespass.

Now let's consider her recantation affidavit, as presented by Amnesty International.

At the trial, Dorothy Ferrell, who was staying at a hotel near the Burger King at the time of the crime, identified Troy Davis as the person who had shot Officer McPhail, emphasizing "I’m real sure, that that is him and, you know, it’s not a mistaken identity".

After the guilt/innocence phase of the trial had ended, the wife of Troy Davis’ defence lawyer received a telephone call from a woman who identified herself as Dorothy Ferrell, and stated that she had lied on the witness stand. The prosecution then revealed that Dorothy Ferrell had written a letter to District Attorney Spencer Lawton requesting "a favor" and his "help" with her own difficulties with the law. She was on parole at the time. She wrote in the letter: "Mr. Lawton if you would please help me, I promise you, you won’t be making a mistake."

After this revelation, Dorothy Ferrell was recalled to the witness stand, outside of the presence of the jury. She denied having made the telephone call, but admitted to having written the letter. The judge then offered the defence the opportunity to cross-examine Dorothy Ferrell in the presence of the jury, but they did not do so, instead calling for a mistrial on the grounds that the prosecution had withheld information from the defence. The trial judge denied their motion for a new trial.

In her affidavit signed in November 2000, Dorothy Ferrell recalled that she had been staying in a hotel opposite the Burger King restaurant on the night of the shooting. She said that she heard a woman scream and gunshots. In her affidavit, she recalls seeing "more than two guys running away", but states that she did not see who the gunman was. After the crime, she was asked to go down to the police station, where she was made to wait until she gave a statement. The affidavit continues:

"I was real tired because it was the middle of the night and I was pregnant too… I was scared that if I didn’t do what the police wanted me to do, then they would try to lock me up again. I was on parole at the time and I had just gotten home from being locked up earlier that year.

When the police were talking to me, it was like they wanted me to say I saw the shooting and to sign a statement. I wanted to be able to leave and so I just said what they wanted me to say. I thought that would be the end of it, but it turned out not to be the end."

Sometime later, a police detective visited Dorothy Ferrell and showed her a photograph of Troy Davis, and told her that other witnesses had identified him as the gunman:

"From the way the officer was talking, he gave me the impression that I should say that Troy Davis was the one who shot the officer like the other witness [sic] had… I felt like I was just following the rest of the witnesses. I also felt like I had to cooperate with the officer because of my being on parole…I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter, even though the truth was that I didn’t see who shot the officer."

In her affidavit, Dorothy Ferrell recalls her fear that if she did not repeat her statement at the trial, she would be charged with perjury and "sent back to jail". She says that she spoke to two lawyers who said that she could be so charged and could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.

"I had four children at that time, and I was taking care of them myself. I couldn’t go back to jail. I felt like I didn’t have any choice but to get up there and testify to what I said in my earlier statements. So that’s what I did."

On the question of the telephone call made to Troy Davis’ defence counsel at the time of the trial, Dorothy Ferrell’s affidavit adds that:

"I didn’t make that call to the house of the attorney but my friend made the call after she and I had talked. I told my friend about how I had testified to things that weren’t the truth and I was feeling bad about it. That’s why she made the call."

Darrell Collins
Darrell Collins was the third of three individuals who followed Larry Young back from the convenience stores. I did not speak of him before because it seems clear that he did not harass or assault Larry Young or shoot Officer MacPhail. I held him back, and I discuss his courtroom testimony now, as I understand it from Judge Moore's decision.

Darrell Collins was the third individual involved in the altercation with Larry Young. At trial, he testified that Mr. Davis was wearing the white shirt and assaulted Larry Young. According to Mr. Davis, Darrell Collins has since recanted the latter portion of that testimony, which was originally secured through police coercion.  In statements that Mr. Collins gave to the police in the days following the shootings, he stated that Mr. Davis was responsible for the Cloverdale shooting, struck Larry Young on the head, and wore a white shirt on the night of the incidents.

At the trial, Mr. Collins reaffirmed that Mr. Davis was wearing the white shirt and assaulted Mr. Young. However, Mr. Collins testified that he lied about Mr. Davis' involvement in the Cloverdale shooting due to police intimidation.  In his recantation affidavit, Mr. Collins claimed a second lie -- that he never saw Mr. Davis strike Larry Young. He averred that he was comfortable revealing the first lie at trial but not the second because he felt the police cared more about whether Mr. Davis assaulted Mr. Young than Mr. Davis' responsibility for the Cloverdale shooting. At the hearing, Mr. Collins again claimed that he lied about both the assault on Larry Young and the Cloverdale incident due to police coercion. Specifically, he claims that he simply parroted what the police told him to say. However, he did not recant his earlier testimony that Mr. Davis was wearing the white shirt on the night of the shootings.

Mr. Collins testimony is neither credible nor a full recantation. First, regardless of the recantation, Mr. Collins' previous testimony, that has never been unequivocally recanted, still provides significant evidence of Mr. Davis' guilt by placing him in the white shirt.

Second, if Mr. Collins' claim that he simply parroted false statements fed to him by police is truthful, query why Mr. Collins never directly identified Mr. Davis as Officer MacPhail's murderer. Surely, this would have been the best available false testimony, and given Mr. Collins' proximity to the murder it would have been as reasonable as any other false testimony.

Third, there was credible testimony from Officer Sweeney and Mr. Lock that Mr. Collins' testimony was not coerced.

Fourth, Mr. Collins generally lacked credibility, testifying to an implausible version of events: that he was less than ten feet from Larry Young when the assault occurred and did not turn away from the confrontation until Officer MacPhail arrived, but saw nothing. Given the close proximity, it would be safe to assume that surely Mr. Collins saw either Mr. Coles or Mr. Davis strike Mr. Young -- not that Mr. Coles simply saw nothing.

Because Mr. Collins continues to provide evidence of Mr. Davis' guilt and his recantation is not credible, his testimony does not diminish the State's case.

Judge Moore does not include in his decision verbatim text from the recantation affidavits. As a public service, I will present some verbatim text from Darrell Collins' affidavit, as provided by Amnesty International.

Darrell Collins was a friend of Troy Davis who was with him on the night of the crime. At the time, he was 16 years old. In his affidavit he said that the day after the shooting, 15 or 20 police officers came to his house, "a lot of them had their guns drawn". They took him in for questioning, and the affidavit continues:

"When I got to the barracks, the police put me in a small room and some detectives came in and started yelling at me, telling me that I knew that Troy Davis…killed that officer by the Burger King. I told them that… I didn’t see Troy do nothing. They got real mad when I said this and started getting in my face. They were telling me that I was an accessory to murder and that I would pay like Troy was gonna pay if I didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear.

They told me that I would go to jail for a long time and I would be lucky if I ever got out, especially because a police officer got killed… I didn’t want to go to jail because I didn’t do nothing wrong. I was only sixteen and was so scared of going to jail. They kept saying that…[Troy] had messed with that man up at Burger King and killed that officer. I told them that it was Red and not Troy who was messing with that man, but they didn’t want to hear that…

After a couple of hours of the detectives yelling at me and threatening me, I finally broke down and told them what they wanted to hear. They would tell me things that they said had happened and I would repeat whatever they said."

Darrell Collins said that he signed a typed statement without reading it, and was then allowed to go home. According to his affidavit, he was questioned again about a week later by the police who gave him another typed statement to sign. He said he again signed the statement without reading it. The affidavit continues:

"I testified against Troy at his trial. I remember that I told the jury that Troy hit the man that Red was arguing with. That is not true. I never saw Troy do anything to the man. I said this at the trial because I was still scared that the police would throw me in jail for being an accessory to murder if I told the truth about what happened…

It is time that I told the truth about what happened that night, and what is written here is the truth. I am not proud for lying at Troy’s trial, but the police had me so messed up that I felt that’s all I could do or else I would go to jail."

Kevin McQueen
I'm going to wrap up this series up with the snitch, Kevin McQueen. Let's see what Judge Moore had to say about good ol' Kevin McQueen's testimony and recantation.

Kevin McQueen was the "jail house snitch." At trial, his testimony was used to relate Mr. Davis' confession to the MacPhail murder. Mr. Davis contends that Mr. McQueen admits his prior testimony was a "complete fabrication."

At trial, Mr. McQueen claimed that Mr. Davis confessed the following events to him. Mr. Davis began his night by shooting at the group from Yamacraw -- the Cloverdale shooting. Mr. Davis then went to his girlfriend's house for a time, and later to the Burger King to eat breakfast. While at Burger King, Mr. Davis ran into someone who "owed [him] money to buy dope." There was a fight regarding the drug money, and when Officer MacPhail came over, Mr. Davis shot him.

At the hearing before this Court, Mr. McQueen testified that there was "no truth" to his trial testimony. He claimed that he fabricated the testimony to get revenge on Mr. Davis for an altercation in the jail and because he received benefits from the State. Mr. McQueen put the same recantation into an affidavit on December 5, 1996, but stated his only reason for testifying falsely was the altercation between he and Mr. Davis. Other than claiming that Mr. Davis was guilty of both the MacPhail murder and Cloverdale shooting, Mr. McQueen's trial testimony totally contradicts the events of the night as described by numerous other State witnesses. Indeed, while other witnesses described a fight over alcohol, Mr. McQueen described a fight over drugs; and while other witnesses claimed Mr. Davis went to shoot pool immediately prior to the murder, Mr. McQueen claimed Mr. Davis went to get breakfast. These inconsistencies make it clear that Mr. McQueen's trial testimony was false, a fact confirmed by Mr. McQueen's recantation. Given that Mr. McQueen's trial testimony was so clearly fabricated, and was actually contrary to the State's theory of the case, it is unclear why the State persists in trying to support its veracity. Regardless, the recantation is credible, with the exception of the allegation of prosecutorial inducements, but only minimally reduces the State's showing at trial given the obviously false nature of the trial testimony.

I believe that says it all. I'm finally ready to take a position on the impending execution of Troy Anthony Davis.

I oppose it. 

The Yellow and White Case of Troy Anthony Davis: Part 4

To determine whether it was Troy Davis or Sylvester Coles who shot and killed Officer MacPhail, I begin by looking at the timeline. I really like timelines; the more detailed the better. The very act of constructing a thorough timeline almost always brings revealing issues to light.

I'm not suggesting the short timeline segment that follows for the Troy Davis case is anywhere  near worthy of one that would be necessary for a thorough evaluation of his case. However, even the puny, under-researched timeline segment below will be informative. All times will be for August 19th, 1989 unless otherwise noted.

I extracted the timeline items from information I have already provided you in Parts 1, 2 and 3. You should read those posts first if you have already done so.

Buckle up. Here we go.

1:01 AM -- Van passenger Anthony Lolas hears gunshots

1:09 AM -- Savannah PD receives 911 call from employee at Thunderbird Inn reporting shooting

1:16 AM -- Coles arrives at his sister's house, assuming it took him 15 minutes to run there.

1:17 AM -- Coles takes off his yellow shirt and puts on another he kept at his sister's house. Sits on front porch.

1:42 AM -- Davis arrives at Coles' sister's house, without a shirt. Coles gives him the yellow shirt to put on.

1:42 AM -- Coles leaves his sister's house as Davis is putting on the yellow shirt. Coles is heading back to the crime scene.

2:12 AM -- Coles arrives back at crime scene. This assumes he took twice as long to walk back there as it took him to run from there.

2:27 AM -- Harriet Murray gives statement to SPD.

3:10 AM -- Larry Young gives statement to SPD.

3:22 AM -- Antoine Williams gives statement to SPD.

5:15 AM -- Stephen Sanders (van occupant) gives statement to SPD.

5:20 AM -- Anthony Lolas (van occupant) gives statement to SPD. Said shooting took place at 1:01 AM.

5:49 AM -- Matthew Hughes (van occupant) gives statement to SPD.

5:57 AM -- Eric Riggins (van occupant) gives statement to SPD.

6:10 AM -- Steven Hawkins (van occupant) gives statement to SPD.

?:?? PM -- Steven Sylvester Coles visits an attorney sometime in the afternoon.

8:52 PM -- Sylvester Coles goes to SPD, with his attorney, and gives a voluntary statement. He says nothing about changing shirts at his sister's house.

Aug 24, 1989 -- 5 days after the shooting. Coles gives a second statement to the police. He says nothing about changing shirts at his sister's house.

Sep 1, 1989 -- 12 days after the shooting. Coles' sister gives the police a statement about the changing of shirts at her house soon after the shooting.

Sep 8, 1989 -- 19 days after the shooting. Coles testifies at the preliminary hearing about changing shirts at his sister's house.

Aug 10, 1991 -- Two years after the shooting. Both Coles and his sister testify at the trial about Coles' changing his shirt at her house.

This is another case of: "First to talk, walks. Last to lie, dies." Sylvester Coles was the first to talk in this case. He fingered Troy Davis. Coles walked and Davis is going to die.

I came up with the phrase "First to talk, walks. Last to lie, dies." after noting the pattern in case after case of accomplice testimony. The police willfully, eagerly choose to believe the first person who rats out the other or others. The police then get a serious case of tunnel vision. They inflate any evidence that might prove Accomplice #2 guilty. They ignore any evidence that shows Accomplice #1 is lying or might have himself committed the crime. They become far more interested in convicting someone, anyone than in convicting the guilty one.

It's easier that way. Imagine the difficulty they would have had in this case if both Davis and Coles denied shooting Officer MacPhail.

In the Troy Davis case, I consider almost all the evidence the SPD collected after 8:52 PM on the day of the shooting to be tainted. After that time, the witnesses' vision and memory somehow became better and better as time went on. Though such temporal improvements are rare elsewhere, they are unfortunately all too common in police work.

Let's now consider each of the statements regarding the magical changing of the shirts.

1. Valerie Coles Gordon's police statement on September 1, 1989: Ms. Gordon informed the police that, in the early morning of August 19, 1989, she was sitting on her front porch when she heard gunshots. A few minutes later, Mr. Coles ran onto the front porch and sat down in a chair. He then informed his sister that he was not sure what was going on, but that there had been a shooting and he thought someone was trying to kill him. Mr. Coles changed out of his yellow t-shirt and into a red, white, and blue stripped collared shirt that Ms. Gordon retrieved for him. She then observed a shirtless Davis standing next to the porch, talking to her brother.  Her brother gave Davis the yellow t-shirt he had previously been wearing, which Mr. Davis then put on. A few minutes later, she observed Davis take off the yellow t-shirt, lay it just inside her front door, and exit the property.

2. Sylvester Coles' testimony at the preliminary hearing: He ran from the scene to his sister's house. He been sitting on his sister's porch for 20 to 30 minutes when a shirtless Troy Davis approached and asked him for a shirt. He gave Davis the yellow t-shirt that he had been wearing earlier that night -- the only spare shirt he had on hand.

3. Sylvester Coles' trial testimony: He ran from the scene until he reached his sister's house. There he changed out of his yellow t-shirt. Approximately 20 to 30 minutes later, Davis appeared at the house. Davis was not wearing a shirt and asked for one to wear. He gave Davis the only other shirt he had at the house -- the yellow t-shirt he had been wearing earlier. He explained that he often kept clothes at his sister's house because he liked to change after playing basketball in that neighborhood.

4. Valerie Coles Gordon's trial testimony: She was sitting on her porch when she heard some gunshots. Approximately 15 to 20 minutes later, her brother ran onto the porch. He immediately slumped over, gasping for breath, causing her to think that he was hurt. Satisfied that he was uninjured, she went into the house and laid out three shirts for her brother to change into. She recalls her brother changing out of the yellow shirt he had been wearing into a blue, red, and white collared shirt. After changing shirts, her brother left the yellow shirt on the banister. A few minutes later, Davis came up to the porch, wearing dark shorts and no shirt. Her brother stepped outside to speak with Davis, eventually handing him the yellow shirt that Mr. Coles had previously been wearing. After handing the yellow shirt to Davis, her brother left. Davis put the shirt on, but quickly took it off and left it by her front door. She washed the shirt the next day, later giving it to the police.

Had I been a juror, claxons would have been blaring in my head when the first one of them testified about the shirt swap. It's a transparently bogus story. My thought would have been that they feared someone had seen Coles in a white shirt or Davis in a yellow shirt. Any such sighting would be evidence that Coles, not Davis, was the shooter. So they concocted the story about the shirt swap to create plausible deniability. "Sure, my brother wasn't wearing the yellow shirt after the shooting, because I gave him a fresh one."

When the second one of them testified about the shirt swap, I would have hit the ceiling. I would have known then, without doubt, that they were lying. Coles said at trial that he gave the yellow shirt to Davis because that was the only other shirt he had at the house. Well that was certainly unfortunate for Davis. Recall that Coles had just been running for 15 to 20 minutes all the way from the crime scene to his sister's house.

Then it would hit me as odd that Coles kept shirts at his sister's house so that he could change after playing basketball, but the only shirt that was at her house was a red, white, and blue collared shirt. Seems like a limited and odd collection. Perhaps, I might think, he had taken all the others home with him to wash them.

Nope, that wouldn't be it. His sister said she washed the shirts for him. Remember? She washed the yellow shirt the next day, before giving it to the police. One wouldn't any unsightly incriminating evidence left on the shirt. How embarassing!

The testimony that would have really done it for me, however, was when the sister said she laid out three shirts for her brother to change into. That's two more than her brother said were available. Why did Coles give Davis the sweaty, stinky t-shirt when he had just selected from a collection of three clean shirts his sister had laid out for him?

I would have been confident the accomplice was lying about the shirts, as was his sister. I would have been equally confident the prosecutor realized it too. Given that the State also wanted me to believe the snitch, and given that several witnesses had already explained how they got their identifications of Davis right only after several tries, I would have dismissed the prosecution team as untrustworthy. And that is a killer for them. If I don't trust them to be truthful with me, I won't accept that they ever prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

I would have voted Not Guilty. I am, after all, The Skeptical Juror.

I recognize, however, that I am a member of an exceptionally small community of like-minded individuals. Tomorrow, I'll explain why the actual jurors voted guilty, and why most of you would have as well.

Addendum:
Part 5 is now available

The Yellow and White Case of Troy Anthony Davis: Part 3

For those of you unfamiliar with how multi-part posts work, you're supposed to read them in order. If you haven't read Part 1 and Part 2, do so now. We'll leave bread crumbs so when you get back here you'll be able to follow along.

In this third post in my series of indeterminate length, I'm going to, as I promised you I would, provide you with the information you need to figure out who killed Officer Mark MacPhail. You won't have to wade through the 400,000 documents on line to find the critical information. You won't even have to read Judge Moore's 172 page decision. Heck, you don't even have to read Amnesty International's skimpy 39 page summary. Assuming you've read Part 1 and Part 2 of this august series, you will have everything you need to make your decision when you finish reading this post.

Let's get started. All the referenced material below comes from Judge Moore's decision. I have edited it somewhat to get rid of statements and testimony about the other shootings, the various guns that were floating around, the snitch testimony, and other distractions.

First, I'm going to give you Sylvester "Red" Coles' version of events.

Sylvestor Coles' Initial Statement

At 8:52 p.m. on August 19, 1989, Mr. Sylvester "Red" Coles gave a statement to the police concerning the MacPhail shooting. Mr. Coles was standing outside of Charlie Brown's pool room with Messrs. Troy Davis and Darrell Collins when he started arguing with someone passing through the parking lot. Mr. Coles continued to argue with the individual as he walked toward the Burger King restaurant, followed by Messrs. Davis and Collins. Mr. Coles stated that, when they were near the restaurant's drive-through window, Mr. Davis hit the individual in the head with a pistol. As the individual ran off shouting, a police officer came out of the Burger King restaurant and told Messrs. Coles and Davis to "hold it." Mr. Coles stood in the middle of the parking lot while Mr. Davis ran past him toward the Trust Company Bank building. After the officer, nightstick in hand, ran past Mr. Coles toward Mr. Davis, Mr. Coles heard a gunshot. Upon hearing the shot, Mr. Coles began running toward the Trust Company Bank building.  As he was fleeing, Mr. Coles turned around and saw the police officer falling to the ground. Mr. Coles ran past the pool room to his sister's house in Yamacraw Village.

Sylvester Coles' Preliminary Hearing

At the hearing, Mr. Coles testified that he was playing pool at Charlie Brown's pool room in the early hours of August 19, 1989, when he began arguing with a man coming out of the Time-Saver. The argument started because the man would not give Mr. Coles one of the beers he had just purchased. As the argument continued, Mr. Coles pursued the man as he walked toward the Burger King parking lot. Messrs. Davis and Collins followed the pair by cutting through the Trust Company Bank property. As Mr. Coles and the man he was arguing with neared the Burger King drive-through, the man stopped and the two began trading insults face-to-face. While they were arguing, Mr. Coles observed Mr. Davis take up a position just behind the man and to the man's right, with Mr. Collins remaining somewhere behind Mr. Davis. As the man was looking at Mr. Coles, Mr. Davis hit the man in the head with a small, snub-nose thirty-eight with a black or brown handle. ...

After being struck by Mr. Davis, the individual ran to the drive-through window, pleading for someone to call the police. Both Messrs. Coles and Davis had turned to start running -- Mr. Coles toward the Trust Company Bank building and Mr. Davis closer to Oglethorpe Avenue. Soon after they had started running, a police officer came around the Burger King and told them to "hold it." Upon hearing the officer, Mr. Coles turned and stopped. The officer ran past Mr. Coles' right side, continuing toward Mr. Davis. After the officer had passed him, Mr. Coles heard a single gunshot, which caused him to turn and resume running toward the Trust Company Bank building. As he was running, Mr. Coles heard two more gunshots. Mr. Coles stated that he was wearing a yellow t-shirt and blue shorts the night of the shooting, but could not remember what Mr. Davis was wearing. ...

Mr. Coles stated that he continued running to the Yamacraw neighborhood until he reached the home of his sister, Ms. Valerie Gordon. Mr. Coles had been sitting on his sister's porch for twenty to thirty minutes when a shirtless Mr. Davis approached and asked Mr. Coles for a shirt. Mr. Coles gave Mr. Davis the yellow t-shirt that he had been wearing earlier that night -- the only spare shirt Mr. Coles had on hand.

Sylvester Coles Trial Testimony

Mr. Coles testified at the trial that, in the early hours of August 19, 1989, he was outside of Charlie Brown's pool room when he asked a man passing by for a beer.  Mr. Coles began arguing with the individual when he was refused, following him along Oglethorpe Avenue toward the Burger King parking lot. Messrs. Davis and Collins were trailing the two, coming around the back of the Trust Company Bank building. The three young men converged on the individual with the beer in the Burger King parking lot, Mr. Coles in front of him, Mr. Davis behind the individual to his right, and Mr. Collins in the background. As the individual was looking at Mr. Coles, Mr. Davis hit the man on the side of the head with a black, short-barreled thirty-eight with a brown handle. He recalled seeing Mr. Davis with a gun in the waistline of his pants earlier when they were at the pool room. After the assault the group scattered: the man who was struck ran to the drive-through window, Coles ran toward the back of the Trust Company Bank building, and Mr. Davis ran along Oglethorpe Avenue toward the front of the Trust Company Bank property. As they started to run, a police officer appeared from behind the Burger King and ordered everyone to "hold it."  Mr. Coles stopped and turned, and the officer ran past him toward Oglethorpe Avenue. As the officer ran past him, Mr. Coles heard a single gunshot. After hearing the first gunshot, he turned and resumed running, at which point he heard two more gunshots.  Mr. Coles continued running until he reached his sister's house in the Yamacraw neighborhood.

When Mr. Coles arrived at his sister's house, he changed out of his yellow t-shirt. Approximately twenty to thirty minutes after Mr. Coles arrived, Mr. Davis appeared at the house. Mr. Davis was not wearing a shirt when he arrived and asked for one to wear. Mr. Coles gave Mr. Davis the only other shirt he had at the house -- the yellow t-shirt he had been wearing earlier. As Mr. Coles was leaving, Mr. Davis put on the yellow t-shirt. ... He explained that he often kept clothes at his sister's house because he liked to change after playing basketball in that neighborhood. Mr. Coles admitted that, after leaving his sister's house, he walked back by the Burger King parking lot, then returned to her house.

The afternoon after the shooting, Mr. Coles brother and uncle took him to an attorney, for whom Mr. Coles had occasionally worked. After listening to Mr. Coles, the attorney promptly took Mr. Coles to the police station to provide a voluntary statement.

Valerie Coles Gordon's Initial Statement

At 10:47 a.m. on September 1, 1989, the police obtained a statement from Ms. Valerie Gordon, Mr. Coles' sister. Ms. Gordon informed the police that, in the early morning of August 19, 1989, she was sitting on her front porch when she heard gunshots. A few minutes later, Mr. Coles ran onto the front porch and sat down in a chair. He then informed his sister that he was not sure what was going on, but that there had been a shooting and he thought someone was trying to kill him. Mr. Coles changed out of his yellow t-shirt and into a red, white, and blue stripped collared shirt that Ms. Gordon retrieved for him.

As Ms. Gordon returned to the front door, she observed a shirtless Mr. Davis standing next to the porch, talking to Mr. Coles.  Mr. Coles gave Mr. Davis the yellow t-shirt he had previously been wearing, which Mr. Davis then put on. Ms. Gordon informed the police that, after Mr. Davis put on the yellow t-shirt, Mr. Coles left the property and she went inside the house. A few minutes later, she observed Mr. Davis take off the yellow t-shirt, lay it just inside her front door, and exit the property.

Valerie Coles Gordon's Trial Testimony

Ms. Gordon testified at the trial that, in the early hours of August 19, 1989, she was sitting on the porch of her Yamacraw neighborhood home when she heard some gunshots. Approximately fifteen to twenty minutes later, Ms. Gordon's brother, Mr. Coles, ran onto the porch. Mr. Coles immediately slumped over, gasping for breath, causing Ms. Gordon to think that he was hurt. Satisfied that he was uninjured, Ms. Gordon went into the house and laid out three shirts for Mr. Coles to change into. Ms. Gordon recalls Mr. Coles changing out of the yellow shirt he had been wearing into a blue, red, and white collared shirt. After changing shirts, Mr. Coles left the yellow shirt on the banister.

A few minutes later, Mr. Davis came up to the porch, wearing dark shorts and no shirt. Mr. Coles stepped outside to speak with Mr. Davis, eventually handing him the yellow shirt that Mr. Coles had previously been wearing. After handing the yellow shirt to Mr. Davis, Mr. Coles left. According to Ms. Gordon, Mr. Davis put the shirt on, but quickly took it off and left it by her front door. She washed the shirt the next day, later giving it to the police.

Troy Anthony Davis' Trial Testimony

At trial, Mr. Davis took the stand in his own defense. ... Mr. Davis never stated what color shirt he was wearing ... Mr. Davis was waiting to play a game of pool when Mr. Collins told him that Mr. Coles was outside arguing with someone. After going outside, Mr. Davis decided to follow the arguing pair. As he neared Mr. Coles, Mr. Davis figured out that Mr. Coles wanted the man to give him some of his beer. Mr. Davis told Mr. Coles to just leave the man alone, but Mr. Coles told him to "shut the hell up." Joined by Mr. Collins, Mr. Davis continued following Mr. Coles to see what would happen.

Mr. Davis, along with Mr. Collins, cut through the back of the Trust Company Bank property on their way to the Burger King parking lot. As Mr. Coles was about to cross Fahm Street toward the Burger King parking lot, Mr. Davis overheard Mr. Coles threaten to take the life of the man with whom Mr. Coles was arguing. Mr. Davis caught up with Mr. Coles and the individual in the middle of the Burger King parking lot. According to Mr. Davis, he again pleaded with Mr. Coles to leave the man alone, but was told to shut up.

Mr. Davis testified that the individual turned to Mr. Davis and told him to tell Mr. Coles to back off. While the individual was focused on Mr. Davis, Mr. Coles slapped him in the head. Mr. Davis stated that, after Mr. Coles slapped the individual, Mr. Davis shook his head and started walking away. As he was walking, Mr. Davis observed Mr. Collins running, prompting Mr. Davis to start jogging away from the Burger King. Looking over his shoulder, Mr. Davis saw a police officer entering the Burger King parking lot.

When Mr. Davis was crossing back over Fahm Street, toward the Trust Company Bank property, he heard a single gunshot, which caused him to run even faster. Mr. Davis was running past Charlie Brown's when he heard a few more gunshots. As Mr. Davis was entering the Yamacraw neighborhood, Mr. Coles ran past him. Thinking Mr. Coles had been shot, Mr. Davis asked him if he was alright, but Mr. Coles continued running and did not respond. ...

Mr. Davis testified that, at the time of the shooting, he weighed approximately one-hundred and seventy-five pounds. He denied ever having a fade-away haircut. Comparing himself to Mr. Coles, Mr. Davis stated that he was the same height, a little bigger, and had a darker complexion. ...

... Mr. Davis stated that he approached the Burger King parking lot from behind the Trust Company Bank building because he thought it was faster, not because he wanted to approach the man Mr. Coles was arguing with without being seen.

Also, Mr. Davis reiterated that it was Mr. Coles who slapped Mr. Young. He denied shooting the police officer, [or] seeing Mr. Coles at his sister's house later that evening ...

There you go. That's all you need.

Now you can decide how you would have voted had you been a skeptical juror in this case. It's not good enough to decide how you would have voted. You need to justify your decision.

You have until tomorrow. Then I'll post my answer and we can compare notes.

Addendum:
Part 4 be here.

The Yellow and White Case of Troy Anthony Davis: Part 2

You must read Part 1 before you read this post. It's a rule. The rest of us will wait here patiently.

About time! We've been waiting like forever.

In this post, I'm going to present the eyewitness testimony of the people who had a good look at the shooter. All of these eye-witnesses gave statements immediately after the shooting. None of them had any bias for or against Troy Davis or Sylvester Coles. None of them, for that matter, could identify either person as being at the scene that night, at least initially. They all tell a consistent story. Part of that consistent story is that the shooter wore a white shirt.

Are you ready for some signed statements?

The Homeless Beer Purchaser

We begin our examination of the early, uncorrupted eye-witness evidence by considering the initial statement of Larry Young. As you recall, Larry Young was the homeless gentleman who was harassed over a beer by the man in the yellow shirt. I first provide the summary of his statement from Judge Moore's 2010 decision.

At 3:10 a.m. on August 19, 1989, the police obtained a statement from Mr. Young concerning the MacPhail shooting. Mr. Young informed the police that, during the early hours of August 19, 1989, he was sitting in the Burger King parking lot drinking beer with his girlfriend, Ms. Murray. When the couple drank their last beer, Mr. Young went to the Time-Saver convenience store to get more beer.  As Mr. Young was returning, an African-American male wearing a yellow t-shirt began asking him for one of the beers that Mr. Young just purchased. When Mr. Young informed the individual that he could not have a beer, the individual began using foul language toward Mr. Young.

As Mr. Young continued walking back toward the Burger King, the individual in the yellow t-shirt followed him, continuing the verbal altercation. As he approached the Burger King parking lot, Mr. Young noticed a second African-American male slipping through the fence separating the convenience store parking lot from the Trust Company Bank property. Soon, Mr. Young realized that he was being followed by a third individual. [I ignored the third individual in my crime scenes, since he did not participate in the assault or the shooting.]

As Mr. Young entered the Burger King parking lot, he observed Ms. Murray and two gentlemen sitting with her quickly get up and flee the area. Mr. Young now realized that he was cornered and resumed arguing with the individual in the yellow t-shirt. As Mr. Young was focused on the individual in the yellow t-shirt, he was hit in the head by a second person. A stunned and fearful Mr. Young ran toward the Burger King drive-through window, seeking help. When he was at the window, Mr. Young heard one gunshot, which caused him to duck for cover behind a van waiting at the window. Eventually, he ran to the building's front entrance and entered the building.

Mr. Young informed the police that the individual in the yellow t-shirt was around twenty to twenty-one years old, five feet nine inches tall, and one hundred and fifty-eight pounds. The individual had short hair, no facial hair, and lighter brown skin. When describing his clothes, Mr. Young stated that the yellow t-shirt was a tank-top and that the individual was wearing "lam" pants. Mr. Young stated that he definitely recognized the individual in the yellow t-shirt.

Mr. Young described the individual who assaulted him as about twenty-two to twenty-three years old, five feet eleven inches tall, and one hundred and seventy-two pounds. Mr. Young could not remember the individual's facial features or skin color, but believed that he might be able to recognize him if he saw him again He did state that the individual was wearing a white hat and a white t-shirt with "some kind of print on it."

Mr. Young could not remember anything about the third individual because that person was only in the background and was not directly involved in the altercation.

On August 19, 1989, the police showed Mr. Young a photo array of individuals and asked him if he recognized anyone who was involved in his assault. Mr. Young incorrectly identified the individual he was arguing with, but stated that he was not sure. A few days later, however, Mr. Young realized his error when he saw Mr. Coles in person at the police station. After seeing Mr. Coles, Mr. Young identified him as the man he was arguing with.

I distrust Young's identification of Sylvester Coles as the man in the yellow shirt, since that ID was given only after the police decided who would be the winner and who would be the loser in the death-by-needle lottery.

Here's what Amnesty International has to say about Larry Young's testimony.

Larry Young was the homeless man who was accosted and then struck in the face, and whose shouts drew the attention of Officer McPhail. At the trial, he implicated Troy Davis as the man who had assaulted him, but only identifying him by his clothing. His affidavit, signed in 2002, offers further evidence of a coercive police investigation into the murder of their fellow officer, and states that he "couldn’t honestly remember what anyone looked like or what different people were wearing".

"After I was assaulted that night, I went into the bathroom at the bus station and tried to wash the blood off my face. I had a big gash on my face and there was blood everywhere. I was in a lot of pain. When I left the bathroom, some police officers grabbed me and threw me down on the hood of the police car and handcuffed me. They treated me like a criminal, like I was the one who killed the officer.

Even though I was homeless at that time and drinking and drugging, I didn’t have nothing to do with killing the officer. I told the officers that, but they just locked me in the back of the police car for the next hour or so. I kept yelling that I needed to be treated but they didn’t pay me no mind. They then took me to the police station and interrogated me for three hours. I kept asking them to treat my head, but they wouldn’t.

They kept asking me what had happened at the bus station, and I kept telling them that I didn’t know. Everything happened so fast down there. 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. They suggested answers and I would give them what they wanted. They put typed papers in my face and told me to sign them. I did sign them without reading them.

I never have been able to make sense of what happened that night. It’s as much a blur now as it was then."

I believe that Larry Young was in fact treated roughly by frenzied police, but I'm not compelled by his later claims that he only said what the police wanted him to say. When he gave his initial statement, the police did not have the name of either Troy Davis or Sylvester Coles. They had no story to insist upon.

The Homeless Girlfriend

Recall that Harriet Murray was Larry Young's girlfriend. She waited at the Burger King parking lot as Larry went to get some more beer. She saw the crime unfold and play out, from beginning to end. Here's what Judge Moore had to say about her initial statement.

At 2:27 a.m. on August 19, 1989, Ms. Harriet Murray provided the police with a statement concerning the MacPhail shooting. In the early hours of August 19, 1989, Ms. Murray was sitting in front of the Burger King restaurant with Mr. Larry Young. Mr. Young went to the nearby convenience store to purchase cigarettes and beer. While Mr. Young was returning from the store to the Burger King parking lot, Ms. Murray noticed that he was arguing with another individual, who was following him. Ms. Murray also noticed two other individuals, approaching from the direction of the Trust Company Bank building, who were following Mr. Young.

Walking away from the individuals, Mr. Young repeatedly told the group that he was not going to fight them. Ms. Murray heard one individual tell Mr. Young not to walk away and threaten to shoot him. The individual then started digging down his shirt. As the three individuals converged on Mr. Young, one produced a gun. Unaware of the weapon, Mr. Young continued to walk away from the trio. As Mr. Young approached a van parked at the Burger King drive-through window, the armed individual struck Mr. Young in the head with what Ms. Murray believed was the butt of the weapon. Mr. Young then fled toward the drive-through window, and began beating on the van and the window, asking for someone to call the police.

Next, Ms. Murray observed a police officer approaching the three individuals, who were now fleeing, telling them to 'hold it." As the officer closed to within five feet, the individual with the firearm turned and aimed the weapon at the officer. The weapon did not discharge when the individual first pulled the trigger. As the officer reached for his gun, the individual shot him in the face.

Wounded, the officer fell to the ground, at which point the gunman fired two or three additional rounds at the officer and then continued running. Ms. Murray then found Mr. Young and assisted him in tending to his head wound. Ms. Murray described the gunman as having medium-colored skin with a narrow face, high cheekbones, and a fade-away haircut. She estimated him to be between twenty-four to thirty years old, four inches taller than the officer, and approximately one hundred and thirty pounds. Ms. Murray recalls the gunman as wearing a white shirt and dark colored pants.

Ms. Murray was shown a photo array the night of the shooting, but could not identify the gunman. Several days later, the police showed her a second photo array, from which she identified Mr. Davis as the man who hit Mr. Young and shot the officer.

And here's what Amnesty International had to say about Harriet Murray.

A third witness who has contradicted her trial testimony is Harriet Murray. Murray, who was also homeless at the time, was with her friend Larry Young on the night of the crime. Her various statements given to the police, at the preliminary hearing, at the trial, and in an affidavit signed on 14 October 2002 are inconsistent. According to Troy Davis’s federal appeals, Harriet Murray’s police statement and her testimony at the preliminary hearing appear to implicate Sylvester Coles. At the subsequent trial she identified Troy Davis as the gunman, but was not asked and did not say whether the man who followed Larry Young, harassed him and attacked him was the same person who shot the police officer. In her 2002 affidavit, she did not identify Troy Davis as the shooter. This was consistent with a statement she gave to police after the crime, in which she simply stated that she had witnessed "a black man" accost Larry Young and hit him on side of the face with his gun. She said she saw the same man subsequently shoot the police officer. She said that she had also seen "two other black men" nearby but they were "not right up with Larry and the other man".

Once again, I intend to rely on the statement Harriet Murray gave the police soon after the shooting. Once again, I reject any photo identification made only after the police decided they wanted Davis to die for the murder of their fellow officer.

The Burger King Employee

Antoine Williams had just arrived for work at Burger King. He saw it all go down, albiet through heavily tinted windows. First from Judge Moore's summary.

At 3:22 a.m. on August 19, 1989, the police took a statement from Mr. Antoine Williams concerning the MacPhail shooting. At about 1:00 a.m. that morning, Mr. Williams was pulling into the Burger King parking lot to begin his shift at the restaurant. As he was parking, he noticed three men following one individual, who was walking across Fahm Street toward the Burger King parking lot. As they drew closer, Mr. Williams could tell that two of the individuals were arguing. He overheard the individual being followed say that he did not want to fight anyone and that the three others should go back to where they were. As the group came between his car and the drive-through window, one of the individuals ran up and slapped the man being followed in the head with a gun.

When Mr. Williams looked the other way, he saw a police officer coming from behind a van waiting at the Burger King drive-through window. The officer was running towards the individual with the firearm. The two unarmed individuals were already running away, and the individual with the gun was trying to stick it back in his pants. According to Mr. Williams, the assailant appeared to panic as the officer was approaching and he was unable to conceal the gun. When the officer closed to within approximately fifteen feet, the assailant turned and shot the officer. After falling to the ground, it appeared that the officer was trying to regain his footing when the gunman shot him three more times. After firing the fourth shot, the gunman fled from the scene.

Mr. Williams described the gunman as approximately twenty to twenty-three years old, six feet two inches to six feet four inches tall, and one hundred and eighty pounds. Mr. Williams believed that the gunman was wearing a blue or white t-shirt, and dark jeans. He explained that the dark shade of tint on his car's windows may have affected his ability to distinguish the exact color of the gunman's t-shirt.  Mr. Williams then described the gun used in the shooting as a rusty, brownish colored revolver.  Mr. Williams did state that he believed he could identify the gunman if he saw him again. When asked to describe the other three individuals, Mr. Williams could not provide any details because he was focused on the gunman.

Now from Amnesty International's report.

Antoine Williams, an employee of Burger King, had just driven into the restaurant’s car park at the time the shooting occurred. At the trial, he identified Troy Davis as the person who had shot Officer McPhail. In 2002 he stated that this was false, and that he had signed a statement for the police which he could not and did not read.

"I couldn’t really tell what was going on because I had the darkest shades of tint you could possibly have on my windows of my car. As soon as I heard the shot and saw the officer go down, I ducked down under the dash of my car. I was scared for my life and I didn’t want to get shot myself… Later that night, some cops asked me what had happened. I told them what is written here [in the affidavit]. 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. It all happened so fast. Even today, I know that I could not honestly identify with any certainty who shot the officer that night. I couldn’t then either. 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. At Troy Davis’ trial, I identified him as the person who shot the officer. Even when I said that, I was totally unsure whether he was the person who shot the officer. I felt pressured to point at him because he was the one who was sitting in the courtroom. I have no idea what the person who shot the officer looks like."

The Van Full of People

After Larry Young was pistol-whipped, he stumbled against a van making its way through the Burger King drive-through. That van was full of witnesses. I'll give just Judge Moore's summary for some of them below.

At 5:20 a.m. on August 19, 1989, the police took a statement concerning the MacPhail shooting from United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Lolas.  Lt. Col. Lolas informed the police that at approximately 1:01 a.m. he was lying down in the back seat of a van waiting at the Burger King drive-through window when a man started banging on the vehicle, asking for the police. As he was rising from the seat, Lt. Col. Lolas heard one gunshot, quickly followed by two additional shots. Turning toward the direction of the gunshots, Lt. Cal. Lolas saw someone in a striped jumpsuit running toward the front of the Burger King.

Then, Lt. Col. Lolas focused on an individual in a white t-shirt, whose arm was surrounded by smoke. After firing the shots, the gunman fled to the northwest. Lt. Col. Lolas stated that he had no doubt that the individual in the white t-shirt was the shooter. Lt. Col. Lolas never saw the shooter's face, but described him as an African-American male, approximately six feet tall, and around one hundred and seventy pounds. The shooter was wearing a white t-shirt with very dark pants.

At 5:49 a.m. on August 19, 1989, Mr. Matthew Hughes provided the police with a statement concerning the MacPhail shooting. Mr. Hughes was seated directly behind the driver's seat in a van waiting at the Burger King drive-through when an individual came up to the driver's side window. Mr. Hughes could not hear what the man was saying, but noticed a severe cut over his right eye. Next, Mr. Hughes heard a pop from the direction of the parking lot.  He did not think much of it until the other passengers told him there was something going on in the parking lot. As Mr. Hughes turned to look, he heard two more popping sounds. Once he was facing the direction of the sounds, he saw an African-American male in a light colored t-shirt standing over the body of a white individual. After the shooting, the African-American male ran toward the Trust Company Bank building.

Mr. Hughes described the individual in the light colored t-shirt as an African-American male with a slender to medium build, approximately five feet seven inches to five feet nine inches tall. The individual wore dark shorts, a light colored baseball cap, and a light colored t-shirt, with either short or no sleeves. Mr. Hughes also saw a second individual running toward the Trust Company Bank building, who was much closer to that building than the man in the light colored t-shirt. This individual was skinny, dressed in all dark clothes, and appeared to be carrying a gym bag.

At 5:57 a.m. on August 19, 1989, the police obtained a statement from Mr. Eric Riggins concerning the MacPhail shooting. Mr. Riggins was seated in the second row, behind the driver's seat, in a van waiting at the Burger King drive-through window when an individual came to the driver's side window calling for someone to phone the police. After a few seconds passed, Mr. Riggins heard a single gunshot. Turning toward the direction of the gunshot, Mr. Riggins observed a man falling to the ground. An individual, standing five feet from the man on the ground, raised his hand and fired two more shots.  Mr. Riggins recalls that the gunman never completely stopped running to fire the shots and fled towards the Trust Company Bank building.

Mr. Riggins described the shooter as a slim, African-American male, approximately five feet ten inches tall and one hundred and sixty pounds. The gunman was wearing a light colored shirt, dark shorts, and a baseball cap, the color of which Mr. Riggins could not recall. Beyond the shooter, Mr. Riggins saw a second, taller male running towards the Trust Company Bank building.

At 6:10 a.m. on August 19, 1989, Mr. Steven Hawkins provided the police with a statement concerning the MacPhail shooting.  Mr. Hawkins was seated in the middle of the third row of a van waiting at the Burger King drive-through window when an individual came up to the driver's side window asking for someone to call the police. Soon thereafter, Mr. Hawkins heard three popping sounds from the parking lot. Turning to look in the direction of the noise, Mr. Hawkins saw an African-American teenager, who was skinny, approximately six feet tall, and was wearing a white shirt with black shorts or pants, running across the parking lot.

At 5:15 a.m. on August 19, 1989, the police obtained a statement from Mr. Stephen Sanders concerning the MacPhail shooting. Mr. Sanders was seated in a van waiting at the Burger King drive-through window when he observed one African-American male strike another African-American male in the parking lot. The man who had been hit ran to the van, asking for someone to call the police while banging on the hood of the vehicle. It was at this time that Mr. Sanders heard a gunshot. Turning toward the noise, Mr. Sanders observed an African-American male wearing a white shirt and black shorts standing in front of an individual who was falling forward. The male in the white shirt shot at the individual two more times and then start running, with a second individual in a black outfit, toward the Trust Company Bank building. Mr. Sanders informed the police that he would not be able to recognize the two fleeing men, except by their clothing.

To Be Continued

Tomorrow, in Part 3 of X, I'll give you all the info you will need to figure out who the real killer is.