U.S. Supreme Court Orders Davis Hearing

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – Troy Davis will get a new day in court. Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted what Davis's legal team had been seeking for years: a chance to present new evidence to a judge. They believe it will show he's innocent of the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer.

WABE's Odette Yousef reports.

Davis's lawyer, Jason Ewart, is thrilled:

EWART: It's what we've been asking for for almost 10-15 years now, is with the new evidence that has been accumulated we wanted our day in court

Since Davis was convicted, seven of the nine witnesses who implicated him have recanted. No court has heard their testimony.

The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, says quote "The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing." So the case has been handed over to the federal District Court in Savannah. Atlanta Criminal Attorney Page Pate says whoever is assigned the case will have two issues to sort through:

PATE: is there sufficient evidence of actual innocence, two, if so, can I do anything about it?

That second issue is a glaring question in both Justice Steven's majority opinion, and the dissent, written by Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia wrote that district courts can only step in when state courts interpreted federal law incorrectly.

PATE: And that's why Scalia's saying it's a fool's errand,' because you're asking a District Court to hold an evidentiary hearing with ultimately no power to do anything about it, even if he finds that there is evidence of actual innocence.

Scalia argues that legally, Georgia's courts didn't do anything wrong when they convicted and sentenced Davis. Even if Davis is innocent, Scalia writes, "this court has never held that the constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial."

Stevens says that may be reason enough to find the law outlining the District Court's role in these cases unconstitutional.

Odette Yousef, WABE News.