US execution on hold while Supreme Court deliberates

Sep 22, 2011, 1:47 GMT

Washington - A condemned man in the United States was still waiting in the death chamber late Wednesday, two hours after the time scheduled for his lethal injection, while the Supreme Court deliberated another possible delay.

Troy Davis, whose execution has been stayed three times before, saw two state courts turn down his lawyer's appeal on Wednesday, the day he was due to be executed at 7 pm (2300 GMT.)

About an hour before that time, his lawyers went to the Supreme Court with a final appeal for the 42-year-old.

There no word from the court in Washington as of 9 pm.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, in Jackson, Georgia, where the execution was to take place, chanting 'save Troy Davis.'

As the news of the delay reached the crowd, people shouted, laughed and danced, according to broadcast coverage of the protests.

After the delay, Georgia state police in riot gear formed a growing cordon between the protesters and the prison.

Protesters also gathered outside the White House in Washington.

During three previous decisions to delay the execution, seven of nine witnesses recanted or backed away from their testimony in the trial of Davis for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Some claimed police coercion, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said.

The case has drawn international protests. On Wednesday, France made an appeal for clemency. Nearly 1 million people have signed Amnesty International's petition to stop the execution.

France's appeal followed similar calls from Pope Benedict XVI, the European Union and former US president Jimmy Carter.

'I hope this appeal will not be perceived as an outside interference,' Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland said this week. 'At moments like this, true friends are the ones who speak out, with the respect and honesty that our relationship deserves.'

The European Union's top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, had also called for the execution to be 'urgently commuted.' The bloc fundamentally opposes the death penalty.

Davis has come close to execution on three prior occasions, including once when the delay came just two and a half hours before the appointed time.

The Supreme Court has been involved in the Davis case before, when it reviewed the trial and ordered a federal judge to review it in detail and decide whether Davis deserved to die.

That judge upheld the original conviction and sentence.