Community Corner

Five Questions With...Russell Dean Covey On Troy Anthony Davis

George State University School Of Law professor is an expert on death penalty cases

It's a case that's captured the attention of the world.

As far as Georgia's legal system — or for that matter, the U.S. Supreme Court — is concerned received due process and is guilty.

Of course, there are thousands of people who believe he is not guilty or, at the very least, there are enough doubts about his guilt to warrant commutation of his death sentence.

Find out what's happening in East Atlantawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

East Atlanta Patch asked Russell Dean Covey what could happen if it turns out someone else is guilty of the 1989 shooting death of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

Covey is an associate law professor Georgia State University’s College of Law and expert on the death penalty and police interrogations.

Find out what's happening in East Atlantawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Q: If now we come to find out someone else actually killed the officer, legally, can that person be tried when someone else has been convicted for the crime?

A: Yes, another person could be convicted of the crime, but only after the state posthumously exonerated Davis.

Q: Have there been cases where that scenario has occurred where the wrong person was executed?

A: There are many cases in which prisoners have been executed and doubts later surfaced about their guilt. Formal posthumous exonerations, however, are extremely rare.  There have been a few, but they tend to occur long after the execution has occurred.  For example, On January 7, 2011, the Governor of Colorado formally pardoned a man who had been executed 72 years earlier on grounds that evidence shows that he was innocent.  For more information about the case, and others, see http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executed-possibly-innocent.

Q: In a situation like that, what recompense is the family of the person originally convicted entitled to receive?

A: In theory, the family of a wrongfully executed person should be entitled to damages in an action for wrongful death.

Q: Would prosecutors, police, witnesses and the victim's family be subject to any civil or criminal prosecution?

A: Possibly. Criminal prosecutions, up to and including murder charges, could be brought against any person who intentionally took actions to subject an innocent man, knowing him to be innocent, to the death penalty.  Immunity laws would shield law enforcement personnel from civil liability, however, if the cause of the wrongful execution was mere negligence.

Q: The U.S. Supreme Court has the final say in cases like this, but could one argue that killing a potentially innocent man a crime against humanity? If so, could that qualify for a hearing before the International Criminal Court at The Hague and would the U.S. be bound by any rulings there?

A: No, and no. Under international law, for state conduct to be treated as a crime against humanity, the conduct must either have a nexus to armed conflict or must be directed at a civilian population, rather than a single individual. There is nothing here that suggests that the state’s conduct meets that requirement.  In addition, because the United States has never acceded to the Rome Treaty, the ICC has no jurisdiction over acts taken by Georgia officials, in Georgia, in this case.


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