Two robberies show need for gun rights

Citizens of the small Georgia town of Villa Rica got a lesson in gun control last week. On two consecutive days last week, armed robbers attacked local businesses in the normally quiet suburb of Atlanta. In each incident, a man was killed by a gun. Ostensibly both were victims of “gun violence,” but for circumstances were very different. After a weeklong manhunt, the final suspect was arrested this morning in Atlanta.

According to the Villa Rican, the first incident occurred on Tuesday, June 25, when a 19-year-old man wearing a hoodie and ski mask entered Junior’s Food Store, a local convenience store and gas station, around 9:45 p.m. The man, Durante Octavious Ashley, 19, was a part-time employee of the store, but that night he pulled a gun on the clerk who was on duty and demanded money. The clerk opened the cash register and, when Ashley turned his attention to the money inside, pulled his own gun and shot the robber, killing him.

Store owner Rosh Patel confirmed to Examiner on July 2 that because the shooting was in self-defense, no charges are expected against the clerk, whose name was not released. Mr. Patel said that the clerk was very shaken by the incident and was taking some time off from work.

Less than 24 hours later, four men entered a jewelry store on the other side of town. Inside the store, they took out hammers and began smashing jewelry cases to steal the contents. Before the incident ended, one of the men shot and killed store owner Mitch Mobley. Although other people were in the store at the time of the robbery, no one else was injured according to the Villa Rican, although others, including one of Mobley’s sons, were also in the store.

WSB reported that Urarahy Rodrigues, the 34-year-old owner of Defkon One Fighting and Fitness, saw the four killers run past his gym in the same shopping center as the Mobley Company. Rodrigues took a cell phone video of the fleeing suspects and then chased after them. He caught up to 16-year-old Eric Billings, the alleged trigger man, and held him in a choke hold until police arrived.

The four robbers fled after the murder. As of this writing, three of the four men have been arrested. According to WTOC, the sixteen-year-old, Eric Billings, and Raphael Rucker, 23, were arrested on June 27, the day after the murder. On Saturday, June 29, WSB reported that 20-year-old Gregory Clifton was captured by police. The fourth suspect, 21-year-old Cranford Phelps, was arrested in Atlanta in the early hours of July 2. The three adults all had prior criminal records. Since Eric Billings is a juvenile, his record could not be verified.

The two incidents illustrate the difference between armed and unarmed victims. At Junior’s, because the clerk was armed with a legal gun, he was able to act to save his own life. Mitch Mobley, who was apparently unarmed, was at the mercy of the four robbers who burst into his store. In both cases, the police were unavailable to protect the victims during the robberies. All too often the role of the police is to arrest murderers in the days after the crime. This is a necessary and important role, but arresting his murderers won’t bring Mitch Mobley back to life. In fact, if it weren’t for Urarahy Rodrigues, who says “I am not a hero,” the perpetrators might have escaped.

Mobley was mourned by the community. Villa Rica had lost more than a business leader and a family man. He was also a philanthropist who organized charity golf tournaments to benefit causes such as cancer research. His store may have been targeted by the men from Atlanta simply because it was near Interstate 20.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics notes that the number of gun homicides has declined 39 percent from 1993 through 2011 (the most recent year for which statistics are available). There were 11,101 fatal firearm homicides that year. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 31,672 gun deaths in 2010 (compared to 33,687 motor vehicle deaths).

The decline in gun homicides comes at a time when the total number of guns in the U.S. has increased sharply. There was a surge in gun sales after the election of Barack Obama and in 2011 Gallup found gun ownership at a 20 year high. Gun violence also declined amidst the Great Recession even though crime is traditionally assumed to spike in times of economic distress. The data calls into question the effectiveness of traditional gun control methods and seems to confirm economist John Lott’s groundbreaking 1998 study, “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Another gun control issue brought into question by the report is the effort to impose background checks and waiting periods at gun shows. According to the BJS report, less than two percent of criminals bought weapons at a flea market or gun show. The vast majority obtained their gun from family or friends (37 percent) or an illegal source (40 percent).

The BJS report notes that in about one percent of nonfatal violent crimes (about 4,600 incidents), a victim reported using a gun to defend themselves. About 0.1 percent of victims of property crime also used guns in self-defense. Without guns for self-defense, the number of gun homicides might rise by almost 5,000.

No one can know for sure whether Mitch Mobley would be alive today if he had kept a gun in his jewelry store. What can be said for certain is that when the gang of criminals burst into his store, he, his staff and his customers were at their mercy. They gave him none.

Originally published as Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Troy Davis: Is Georgia really about to execute an innocent man?

It is said that prisons are full of innocent men. Virtually no prisoners ever admit to guilt. Many believe that Troy Davis, a Savannah man convicted of the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer, may be a truly innocent man.

Davis, nicknamed “Rah” for “rough as hell” by neighborhood kids, was actually a nice person his neighbors told the Savannah Morning News at the time. Neighbors said he was “like a big brother” to local children, but according to a former teacher he was “a dumb kid and a worse student.” Davis had pled guilty to carrying a concealed weapon in 1988 and, according a Morning News article, had been arrested for eluding an officer in a high speed chase several months before the shootings.

The case stems from the events of August 19, 1989 in Savannah. According to Savannah Now, Davis attended a party where he allegedly shot Michael Cooper in the face. After leaving the party, Davis became involved in an argument with Larry Young, a homeless man, and Sylvester “Red” Coles.

At some point, Mark Allen MacPhail, an off-duty, uniformed police officer who was working security at a local Burger King, attempted to intervene and was shot. MacPhail did not draw his own weapon and was shot twice, once in the heart and once in the face. Davis also allegedly pistol whipped Young. Davis claims that he left the scene before the shooting and ultimately left Savannah for Atlanta.

Coles, who claimed that he was the one who fled, told police the next day that Davis had shot MacPhail. Police converged on Davis’ house and searched it, taking a pair of Davis’ shorts. The shorts, which reportedly contained blood, were not allowed to be admitted as evidence because the judge ruled that the warrantless search was not necessary according to the Savannah Morning News. Davis returned to Savannah and surrendered to police on August 23, 1989.

The murder weapon was never recovered, but a ballistics expert testified that both Cooper and MacPhail could have been shot with the same gun. According to Amnesty International, the shell casings from the party matched one found by a homeless man at the Burger King. Much of the prosecution’s case was based on the testimony of witnesses who either specifically named Davis as the killer or who identified him by the white shirt that he wore that night. At the time, there seemed to be little question of Davis’ guilt, although he proclaimed his innocence in court and denied admitting the shootings to anyone.

At the trial, Harriette Murray, Larry Young’s girlfriend, stated that “Davis was the same person who hit Larry and shot the police [officer]” according to the Morning News coverage. She stated that Davis was wearing a white shirt.

In the same article, Coles, who said he wore a yellow shirt that night, also said that Davis hit Young. Coles said that Davis had carried a .38 pistol earlier at a pool hall. Coles said that he heard the first shot and started running. Coles admitted to owning a chrome .38, but said that he did not have the gun in his possession at the time of the shooting.

Other witnesses included Kevin McQueen, who claimed that Davis confessed to the killing while playing basketball in jail, and Michael Cooper, who said that Davis had argued with one of his friends at the party. The Morning News said Cooper did not know who shot him, but that Davis didn’t “know me well enough to shoot me.” Benjamin Gordon testified that the man who shot Cooper wore a white shirt and blue shorts, similar to Davis’ attire. Darrell Collins, who was with Davis at the party and at Burger King, said that Davis shot at the car carrying Cooper. Dorothy Ferrell identified Davis in court as the man who shot MacPhail. Both Gordon and Collins changed their stories on cross examination.

According to Savannah Now, there were other witnesses as well. Jeffrey Sapp testified that Davis had admitted shooting the officer in self-defense. Antoine Williams, who worked at the Burger King, and two Air Force enlisted men, Stephen Sanders and Robert Grizzard, agreed that the man who hit Young shot MacPhail. Williams and Sanders agreed with Murray and Ferrell that Davis was the killer.

Amnesty International cites three more witnesses: Monty Holmes, Larry Young, the homeless man, and Darrell Kinsman, another Air Force member. Kinsman could not identify the shooter, but said that the gun had a shiny finish and that the shooter held the gun in his left hand. Davis is right handed. Young identified Davis as the man who assaulted him by the color of his clothing. Holmes said that Davis admitted to him that he shot MacPhail.

Davis was convicted in the shootings of both Cooper and MacPhail, as well as the assault on Young. Since the trial in 1991, almost all of these witnesses have signed affidavits recanting their testimonies. In most cases, they claim that the police pressured or coerced them into testifying against Davis. Sylvester Coles, Harriette Murray, and Stephen Sanders have never recanted their testimonies.

Davis’ conviction predictably led to numerous appeals at both the state and federal levels. After the recantations and the new testimony from several witnesses that implicated Coles, the case garnered international attention. Celebrities from the Pope to Jimmy Carter to Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman and presidential candidate, and William Sessions, a former FBI director, spoke out on Davis’ behalf.

In contrast to defense claims that the new evidence has not been heard, last year Davis was granted a hearing by the Supreme Court to prove his innocence, the first such hearing in 50 years according to the Atlanta Journal. At the hearing in federal court, the defense failed to subpoena Coles, so Judge William Moore did not allow hearsay evidence from witnesses who claimed that Coles had confessed to the killing.

In addition to not calling Coles to testify, the defense also did not call Larry Young and Dorothy Ferrell, two of the prosecution’s most important witnesses and who had by then recanted, to testify. Therefore, the judge could not examine their credibility. According to a Law.com article, Judge Moore called the recantations of Sapp and Collins “impossible to believe” and noted that Murray and Williams did not say that they lied at the trial or that they were coerced. The hearing in front of Judge Moore was Davis’ big chance to prove his innocence and the defense blew it.

Defense claims that Davis is innocent rely solely on the recanted testimonies of the witnesses. By definition, a witness who recants has lied and is no longer credible. The question that the courts must determine is whether the lie took place in the original trial or in the affidavit where the witness claimed to lie at the trial. It is not unreasonable to believe that Davis’ friends, who originally testified against him, want to prevent his execution 22 years later.

The recanted testimonies do nothing to challenge the physical evidence in the case. The fact that that the shell casings from the party where Michael Cooper was shot were a match for the shell casings from the Burger King where Officer MacPhail was shot is a damning piece of evidence. No one has alleged that Sylvester Coles, the only other suspect, was present at the party where Cooper was shot. This makes Davis the only viable suspect.

Davis’ shorts that were not admissible in his original trial were presented as evidence in the 2010 hearing. According to a WSAV report, a GBI report from 2007 indicated that there was a small amount of blood on the shorts, but not enough to do a DNA test. Even though the shell casings matched, the bullets taken from Cooper and MacPhail could not be conclusively matched.

For his part, Spencer Lawton, the Chatham County prosecutor who tried the case, told WTOC, a Savannah television station, in 2008 that he remains convinced of Davis’ guilt. Lawton says that the shell casings from the party shooting “exactly matched the shooting of Officer MacPhail” and that the defense wants “to condemn a fella [sic] named Coles on far less evidence than [on which] Davis was condemned.”

The date for his execution has been set three times previously, but was stayed by courts. It is unlikely that a court will intervene again to delay Davis’ execution after the failure to prove his innocence in 2010. The Georgia Parole Board will meet today to consider his case. If it denies his appeal for clemency, there will be few options left for Davis.

We will never know why Troy Davis, a “straight up fella,” shot and killed Mark MacPhail outside the Burger King that night in 1989, but the evidence is that he did.

 

Continue reading on Examiner.com Review of the Troy Davis case - Atlanta Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/review-of-the-troy-davis-case#ixzz1YPJETbD9

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http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/troy-davis-is-georgia-really-about-to-execute-an-innocent-man

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