Death row inmate in final appeal

19 September 2011 Last updated at 23:49 GMT Davis has been scheduled for execution four times in the last four years A US death row inmate has made a final bid for clemency two days before his scheduled execution for the 1989 killing of an off-duty policeman.

Troy Davis' legal team made the appeal to the Georgia Board of Paroles and Pardons, which has the power to commute the sentence.

Davis was convicted in 1991, but most of the witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony.

The 42-year-old is due to face a lethal injection on Wednesday evening.

Over one million people worldwide have signed petitions for clemency in his case.

No murder weapon

Pope Benedict XVI, former US President Jimmy Carter and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are among those who have backed Davis, who has always maintained he is innocent.

The pardons board has previously rejected Davis's appeal for clemency

He was convicted of the fatal shooting of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia.

Prosecutors say the off-duty policeman intervened as Davis was attacking Larry Young, a homeless man, in a Burger King car park.

Davis was said to have had a "smirk" on his face as he shot MacPhail.

But no murder weapon was ever found and no DNA evidence or fingerprints conclusively linked Davis to the shooting.

Seven of the nine witnesses who testified against him have since recanted or changed their testimony. Others, who did not testify, have said another man at the scene admitted to the shooting.

Vigil

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole heard on Monday from defence lawyers, witnesses and prosecutors as well as MacPhail's relatives. But Davis did not appear.

Madison MacPhail, the victim's daughter, told reporters: "A future was taken from me. A future we would have had together, the future he would have had with his family."

"I believe the death penalty is the correct source of justice," she added. Ms MacPhail was a toddler when her father was killed.

The board has the power to commute the death sentence to life in prison or life without parole.

A vigil took place outside the hearing. Demonstrators held signs that said "I am Troy Davis" and "save Tory Davis", and chanted for his release.

The parole board is Davis' last chance after the federal appeals courts and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

In 2010 US District Judge William T Moore Jr, of the Supreme Court, ordered a rare innocence hearing to investigate doubts about Davis' guilt.

Two witnesses said they falsely incriminated Davis, while two others told the court another man had confessed to being the actual killer.

But Judge Moore said there was not enough evidence to vindicate Davis or grant him a new trial.

Appeals courts have subsequently refused to review the judge's decision.

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US man loses appeal in Aruba missing tourist case

ORANJESTAD, Aruba — An Aruban court on Wednesday rejected a Maryland businessman's attempt to reverse an order detaining him as a suspect in the presumed death of his travel companion in the Dutch Caribbean island.

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The ruling from the three-judge panel means that Gary V. Giordano will have to remain in custody at least through the end of the 60-day investigative detention period imposed on Aug. 31.

"Of course he's very disappointed and sad about this decision," his attorney, Michael Lopez, said outside court.

Lopez had argued that authorities do not have enough evidence to detain Giordano as a suspect in the presumed death of Robyn Gardner, a 35-year-old woman from Frederick, Maryland, who traveled to Aruba with him for what was supposed to be a five-day trip.

Giordano, who is from Gaithersburg, Maryland, and owns a temporary staffing business, was arrested as he tried to leave the island on Aug. 5. Prosecutors have said they initially detained him because he gave inconsistent statements about Gardner's disappearance.

The prosecution has disclosed little of the evidence against Giordano but has said he was the beneficiary of a $1.5 million accidental death insurance policy he took out on her before their trip.

Giordano has told Aruban police that Gardner was apparently swept out to sea as they went snorkeling off the southern tip of the island. Authorities have searched the coastline near where she vanished and parts of the island but her body has not been found. Richard Forester, an on-again-off-again boyfriend of the missing woman, said Wednesday that he is trying to organize a new search effort.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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DNA contamination at heart of Knox's appeal

PERUGIA, Italy — A forensic police expert who conducted the original investigation in the Amanda Knox case insists there was no contamination on crucial pieces of evidence linking the American student and her co-defendant to the murder of her British roommate.

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Patrizia Stefanoni examined DNA traces in the aftermath of the 2007 killing of Meredith Kercher. But her work was criticized by court-appointed experts who have alleged glaring errors in evidence gathering and possible contamination, including on a knife considered to be the murder weapon.

Stefanoni told an appeals court Tuesday that she could rule out contamination on the knife, which she insists contained Kercher's genetic profile.

An independent review of DNA traces in the case found that much of the evidence collected in the original investigation fell below international standards and may have led to contamination of the samples. The review especially focused on some traces of DNA linking the defendants to the crime, and concluded that due to the risk of contamination and the low amounts of DNA used for the testing it was impossible to extract a genetic profile with any certainty.

In the first trial, prosecutors maintained that Knox's DNA was found on the knife's handle and Kercher's DNA was found on the blade. They also say Sollecito's DNA was found on the clasp of Kercher's bra, mixed with the victim's.

Story: Italian police defend their Knox murder probe

Stefanoni also said the international standards in evidence collection protocols have changed since the case began, NBC News reported.

But Carla Vecchiotti, one of the court-appointed expert questioned Monday over the extraction of DNA profiles from the bra clasp, said the data was so mixed that a very high number of genetic profiles could be extracted, depending how one combined the data.

"I could find yours, too," Vecchiotti told the presiding judge. "I'm there, too," she said, adding that some data was compatible with her own DNA. She said Kercher's profile was the only certain one.

Video: End of Amanda Knox appeal in sight (on this page)

The findings have boosted the defendants' efforts to be cleared and gain freedom after almost four years in prison.

"I think we're feeling more hopeful," Knox's father Curt Knox told NBC's Lester Holt on Tuesday.

Knox and her co-defendant and one-time boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of sexually assaulting and killing Meredith Kercher in the apartment that Knox and the 21-year-old Briton shared while studying in Perugia. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison; Sollecito to 25. Both deny wrongdoing and have appealed the Dec. 29 verdict.

A third person, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast, also has been convicted of Kercher's murder in a separate proceeding. Italy's highest criminal court has upheld Guede's conviction and his 16-year-prison sentence. Guede denies wrongdoing.

NBC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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NTC REJECTS GMA-7'S APPEAL, FAVORS JAPAN'S I-SDBT TECHNOLOGY!

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will endorse to administration economic managers the Japanese ISDB-T technology as the country’s standard for digital terrestrial television (DTT), as the majority of broadcast firms’ stakeholders prefer it to the European standard because of cheaper set-top boxes.Jose Carlo Martinez, NTC deputy commissioner, said the technical working group chose ISDB-T after the Kapisanan ng mga Broadcaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) and major television networks ABS-CBN and TV5 supported the Japanese standard.GMA Network Inc. and Broadcast Enterprises & Affiliated Media Inc. expressed preference for the European standard."The implementing rules and regulations on DTT will be release as soon as we receive the go signal," Martinez said.He is targeting the issuance this year.The guidelines for the DTT were supposed to have been issued last June, but the Office of the President directed the NTC to do another evaluation between the Japanese and European standards.Although the European standard was found technically superior, the Japanese set-top box was found much cheaper at $20 against its rival’s $40.A paper submitted by the KBP said that although the DVB-T2 system is technically superior to ISDB-T, these advantages have been irrelevant to the most important stakeholder in the project as consumers need a cheaper set-top box for migration to DTT."The cost of the (box) is the key to harmonizing the opposing interests. The low cost lowers the entry or migration barrier for the consumer and hastens the analog shut off," KBP said.

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