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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Five Creepy True Final Destination Facts

With Death waiting at every street corner, lurking in restaurants and even hovering around the office water cooler, the filmmakers of “Final Destination 5” hope the film will be the most heart-pounding installment to date.

“I think fans are going to eat this up because it delivers everything that makes this a great horror/thriller movie: compelling characters, some of the best deaths that have ever been conceived for a ‘Final Destination’ movie, and incredible and totally unexpected twists they won’t see coming,” says director Steven Quale. “It’s a major adrenaline rush.”

As the film’s Philippine opening nears, New Line Cinema shares creepy but true “Final Destination” facts that are totally out of this world!

When the first draft of the screenplay for the first film in the Final Destination franchise was delivered to New Line Cinema, the project executive brought it with him to read on a flight to New York City. When he opened the envelope, he saw that the screenwriters had titled the script, “Flight 180.” Then he looked at his plane ticket … and realized he was on Flight 180 from Los Angeles to New York. Needless to say, he didn’t read the script. He put it back in the envelope and prayed the plane would land safely. It did.When Final Destination 5 needed a massive steel gimbal knuckle to support the large section of bridge being built on-stage to augment the practical shooting on a suspension bridge in Vancouver, B.C., the plan was to manufacture it from scratch. Then the Special Effects team found someone who was selling the large gimbal he’d had sitting in his warehouse gathering dust for over a decade. They quickly purchased it and discovered that it was, in fact, the original gimbal knuckle manufactured to support the plane body in the first Final Destination. It had been missing for years.During production on Final Destination 5, one of the extras was taking some down time to sort through old boxes of paperwork. Inside one box, he found a call sheet and set of script sides from the original Final Destination … on which he’d been an extra eleven years earlier.During the shooting of Final Destination 3, the schedule had the entire cast on a real rollercoaster for an important establishing shot. As it started up the first incline, the car suddenly stopped halfway up, stranding them for nearly 30 minutes. They were not as excited to shoot the rest of the sequence after that.The writers of the first film, 1990’s Final Destination, named several characters after real life figures in the history of horror films, including Lon Chaney and Tod Browning. Since then, character names have paid homage to a “who’s who” in horror, from William Castle to Roger Corman to George A. Romero.

MORE STRANGE TRIVIA

In the first film, the original plan was to have Death as a much more obvious entity, as illustrated when the character Tod sees a shadow in the mirror and the water running back into the toilet to “cover its tracks.” Subsequently, it was decided to have the deaths appear simply as accidents.

Death foreshadowed: During the opening credits of the first film, a hanging doll, a guillotine and a picture of a knife in someone’s chest foreshadow what will soon befall the characters. One character is shadowed by a dagger in the first film, while in the second film, a character’s face fades into the outline of a skull, and yet another character unwisely ignores warnings about his eye. In Final Destination 3, two characters hear the song “Love Rollercoaster,” which refers to the rollercoaster that should have killed them.

In order to film the massive pileup sequence in Final Destination 2, several miles of highway had to be closed down for several days.

In Final Destination 3, the cast members on the rollercoaster had to ride the coaster 26 times on the same night in order to shoot the film’s main premonition scene.

Tony Todd, who plays Bludworth in the first, second and fifth films, provides the voice of the devil above the entrance to the roller coaster in Final Destination 3. In that third film, he also provides the speaker’s voice saying, “This is the end of the line” in the subway.

The opening titles of The Final Destination (the fourth in the series) recreate death scenes from all three of the previous films. The fourth film holds the distinction of containing 11 “kills,” the most of any film in the series.

In The Final Destination, when he is hit by the bus, the character George is in the middle of stating, “My wife said that Deja Vu is like God’s way of…” and then he’s cut off by the impact. Some viewers wonder what the end of his sentence was going to be. The answer is that of a common expression “…telling you that you are in the right place at the right time,” hence the irony of the situation.

(Opening across the Philippines on Aug. 24 in 3D and regular format, “Final Destination 5” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.)

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Views from Atlantis' final docking with the ISS (photos)

The Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station on July 10, positioning the astronauts for the work they would do on the shuttle program's final flight. Here are a few photos released by NASA of that routine, yet momentous event.

This wide-angle view of Space Shuttle Atlantis' final docking with the ISS shows the Shuttle's cargo bay and part of the station including the solar array panel with Earth in the background. The brilliant green glow of the Aurora Australis, or the Southern Lights, can be seen on Earth's horizon.

(Credit: NASA) Perched at the end of the ISS' remote manipulator system's robotic arm called the Canadarm2, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum holds the Robotics Refueling Mission payload during a spacewalk on July 12.

(Credit: NASA) Astronaut Mike Fossum took this self portrait, with the camera pointed toward his helmet, during a spacewalk on July 12 after installation of the Robotic Refueling Mission on a temporary platform on the International Space Station.

(Credit: NASA)

The shuttle then undocked from the space station yesterday before heading home for a Thursday landing on Earth.

If you have a question or comment for James Martin, you can submit it here. However, because our editors and writers receive hundreds of requests, we cannot tell you when you may receive a response.

James is the photojournalist for CNET News, shooting the geeks and gadgets of Silicon Valley.

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