Four months after watching his client Troy Anthony Davis executed at a Georgia prison, Jay Ewart entertained questions at his alma mater, Emory University. Speaking to a few dozen students, alumni and others Wednesday night, Ewart told the story of the pro bono case he picked up at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., not long after graduating from Emory’s law school in 2003.

Davis was executed in September for the 1989 shooting of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Backed by Ewart, other lawyers and a worldwide network of activists, Davis had long maintained his innocence.

Ewart said Wednesday his practice focuses on antitrust law, but he logged 600 to 700 hours on the Davis case. He won a groundbreaking victory for Davis from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009, when it ordered Davis be given an evidentiary hearing on his innocenceclaims. But the hearing, before U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. in Savannah, went poorly for Davis, ending his best hope for relief.

Ewart’s talk was both candid and guarded, as he offered personal insights into the case but showed some hesitancy in identifying by name the players he was discussing.

Asked at Wednesday’s event about racial issues in the case—Davis was black, while MacPhail was white—Ewart said he thought race played a role in how some viewed the credibility of Davis’ witnesses. He surmised that some assumed those witnesses weren’t telling the truth because they were black and indigent. Without naming anyone specifically, Ewart cited in particular some members of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles who asked a witness for Davis whether he had been paid to come to a clemency hearing.

Ewart said of two federal district court judges who could have drawn Davis’ case after the U.S. Supreme Court sent the matter back to Savannah, he thought Davis had a better chance before Moore. But he said he knew Davis would lose when he realized Moore had his eyes closed during what Ewart described as dramatic testimony from a new eyewitness. He said Moore drew some “strange conclusions that were not exactly streetwise,” citing Moore’s rejection of that witness’ testimony—which amounted to accusing a relative, presumably Sylvester Coles, of murdering the officer—because the witness hadn’t come forth with the information earlier.

Moore had criticized Ewart’s team for not putting on the stand at the hearing some of the witnesses who had given affidavits said to recant their trial testimony. But on Wednesday Ewart cited a large Savannah Morning News headline that ran days before the evidentiary hearing as having “spoiled” witness testimony. The story said blood had been found on Davis’ shorts, and Ewart said one witness in particular saw that and “thought he was on the wrong side.” At the hearing, said Ewart, the state ultimately said a report on the blood evidence didn’t have any value to proving their case.

Moore ruled against Davis, then the Supreme Court and parole board did, too. Sequestered at the prison in Jackson with Davis’ pastor on execution night in September, Ewart said, he watched the clock tick past 10 p.m. and had hope Davis would cheat death as he had three times before. “I could hear Justice Sotomayor’s voice almost,” said Ewart, recalling his thoughts as he imagined the Supreme Court’s debate on Davis’ last-ditch petition.

Ewart, a native of Illinois who said chose to study at Emory to be with a girlfriend, said it would be tough for him to take on a death penalty case in which he didn’t think he could help the inmate achieve success. Noting many Georgians had called his office looking for help, he said many inmates in prison for life have no right to additional free legal help and have compelling stories, too. “That’s what I’m thinking about doing next.”

Tags: Emory University, Jay Ewart, Troy Davis

Contributor: Alyson M. Palmer in Events, History | Tags: Emory University, Jay Ewart, Troy Davis| subscribe to rss |   share