Court rejects appeal by death row man

By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A U.S. court rejected on Monday an appeal by a death row inmate who protests his innocence in a case that the Pope and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu have described as troubling.

In a 4-3 decision, Georgia's Supreme Court turned down an appeal for a new trial for convicted murderer Troy Davis, saying the initial trial court did not abuse its power by rejecting a fresh trial or a hearing on new evidence.

The decision disappointed Davis' supporters who had hoped he might one day be acquitted.

Davis was convicted in 1991 and sentenced to death in Georgia's Chatham County for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail, who was shot dead near a Burger King restaurant in Savannah.

Davis' lawyers say it was a case of mistaken identity. Seven of nine witnesses who testified against him have since recanted and some say police coerced them into giving their original evidence.

Four of those witnesses also now say another man, Sylvester Coles, shot MacPhail and three of them say Coles has confessed to the murder, according to court papers.

Aside from the witness testimony, there was no murder weapon and no DNA or other evidence linking Davis to the crime, his attorneys told the Georgia Supreme Court last November.

Several prominent people have expressed concern including Pope Benedict, Tutu, Helen Prejean, a nun and anti-death penalty campaigner who wrote the book "Dead Man Walking," and former FBI Director William Sessions.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined last June to hear the case and Davis came within 24 hours of being executed by lethal injection last July before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stepped in.

A summary opinion by the Georgia Supreme Court said sworn testimony against Davis at his initial trial held more weight than later recantations in part because memories are fresher closer to the time of the crime.

Davis, who is being held at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia, was "stunned and silenced" by Monday's decision, said defense lawyer Jason Ewart who criticized the opinion as setting an impossibly high standard for recantation evidence.

The decision meant there was little chance of a fresh trial and defense lawyers had no plans to return to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ewart said.

Georgia's attorney general could sign a death warrant for Davis this summer and his lawyers would then go back to the Georgia board, which decides clemency, to try and get the sentence commuted after hearing more witnesses, Ewart said.

"What we are looking at is whether the death sentence would be commuted to life with parole or life without parole. It's a question of execution or not," said Ewart.

(Editing by Alan Elsner and Jim Loney)