newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Before Troy Davis was executed in Jackson, Georgia this past week, protesters were already talking about reforms.

Many people wanted to see the death penalty abolished, while others wanted to reform the justice system. According to CNN, Davis’ cousin Elijah West wants to get a degree in criminal justice to make changes from the inside the courtrooms.

According to an Associated Press report in the Houston Chronicle, Davis’ sister Martina Correia said, "We're going to keep moving forward. That's what my brother would have wanted us to do.”

Off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail, 27, was working as a security guard when he was shot twice after he rushed to help a homeless man who was being beaten outside a bus station. Troy Davis said another man shot MacPhail, though prosecutors and the officer's family insist Davis was the real killer.

Davis’ execution had been stopped three times since 2007 before this week.

Kit Gallant writes in the Huffington Post that Davis was probably innocent of the crime. Gallant says the murder weapon was never found, and seven eyewitnesses of the murder have recanted their testimony.

And he says the federal judge admitted that the state's case "may not be ironclad" but turned down a retrial, because Davis' attorneys had not shown a "truly persuasive showing of innocence."

Charles Lane of the Washington Post says Troy Davis is guilty. He says that Davis had the chance to plead his case in court in a special hearing last year ordered by the Supreme Court, the judge rejected the claim, saying that “Davis is not innocent.”