A clemency hearing has been set for Monday in the case of Troy Davis. Davis is scheduled to be executed on September 21 at 7 PM in Georgia despite the lack of evidence. Davis and supporters will plead their case before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles next week. Meanwhile Amnesty International are ramping up their ongoing petition drive to plead with Georgia to stay Davis’ execution once again.

Davis has been on death row since 1999 for the killing of an off-duty police officer in 1989. Although no physical evidence connected Davis to the crime, nine witnesses reported he shot the officer in a Burger King parking lot. Seven of the nine witnesses have since recanted their testimony. Support for Troy Davis has been world wide and include the Pope, Desmond Tutu, Jesse Jackson and others.

Amnesty International says “support for Davis’s clemency campaign has swelled with hundreds of thousands of people worldwide taking action, from luminaries such as Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta to singer-songwriter Cee Lo Green.”

Amnesty International also says that among the petition signatures from around the world, 26,000 come from Georgia residents and that “support has also come in form of letters to the parole board from former President Jimmy Carter and Norman Fletcher, former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, to Tweets from R.E.M.”

“This is a case that has resonated with Americans of all stripes,” said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA.  “When serious questions about someone’s guilt permeate a case, it brings together liberals and conservatives, those who oppose the death penalty and those who are staunch supporters.  In the case of Troy Davis, hundreds of thousands are raising their voices to say there is simply too much doubt to execute.”

Earlier this week, former Georgia republican Congressman Bob Barr appeared on MSNBC’s as a guest of Al Sharpton. Barr is an advocate of the death penalty, but opposes Troy Davis being executed. Barr said the “recantations of seven witnesses make the Davis case one of those where the death penalty should not be applied.”

Supporters from Amnesty International will present their petition to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles this week. Davis’ family is also collecting signatures for their own petition which has over 200,000 names so far.

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An execution date was set for Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis. Davis, 42, is scheduled to be executed on September 21. This is the fourth time an execution date has been set for Davis. Amnesty International has renewed the call for clemency amid news of the new execution date.

Davis “could very well be innocent,” said Laura Moye, the head of Amnesty’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. “It’s difficult to believe that a system of justice could be so terribly flawed.” Davis was convicted for killing an off-duty police officer in 1989. Davis has maintained his innocence throughout the twenty years he has remained on death row.

Many celebrities, including Susan Sarandan, Desmond Tutu, Jesse Jackson and the Pope, have asked Georgia to give Davis a new trial. No DNA evidence was used and the conviction was based primarily on eyewitness testimony. Since the conviction, seven out of nine eyewitnesses have since recanted their stories. However, Davis has been unable to get a new trial.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Davis’ request that his execution be delayed in order to gain more time to prove his “actual innocence.” Upon reviewing Davis’ claims of innocence, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia found last year that Davis “vastly overstates the value of his evidence of innocence.”

“Some of the evidence is not credible and would be disregarded by a reasonable juror,” Judge William T. Moore wrote in a 172-page opinion. “Other evidence that Mr. Davis brought forward is too general to provide anything more than smoke and mirrors,” the court found.

Families react to the news on Wednesday of the new execution date. “The family’s still feeling optimistic. We’ve been down this road countless times to where you know executing date, clemency hearing, and then at the execution things get changed so we’re still playing very cautious,” Mark MacPhail Jr., son of the murdered police officer, told local news on Wednesday.

Davis’ sister Martina Correia has always been his biggest advocate. ”I’m very disappointed in Georgia because there’s still doubt, but I’m holding the parole board to their standard that when there’s doubt that they won’t execute,” Correia stated. A clemency hearing has been set for September 19^th.

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