Officer
Mark Allen MacPhail, Sr.
Savannah Police Department, Georgia
End of Watch: Saturday, August 19, 1989
End of Watch: Saturday, August 19, 1989
Bio & Incident Details
Age: 27Tour: 3 years
Badge # 212
Military veteran
Cause: Gunfire
Incident Date: 8/19/1989
Weapon: Handgun
Suspect: Executed
Officer
Mark MacPhail was shot and killed while working an off duty security job at a
bus station.
He was shot when he responded to the cries of a homeless man who was being robbed and pistol-whipped. The robber shot Officer MacPhail underneath his vest and then again in the head as he fell.
The subject was sentenced to death and executed on September 21, 2011, twenty-two years after his conviction.
Officer MacPhail was a U.S. Army veteran and had served with the Savannah Police Department for three years. He is survived by his wife, 1-year-old daughter, infant son, mother, and siblings, and is buried in Hillcrest Abbey West Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia.
Events of August 18-23, 1989
The charges against Troy Davis arose from the shooting of Michael
Cooper, the beating of Larry Young and the murder of Officer Mark MacPhail on
August 18-19, 1989.
On the evening of August 18, 1989, Davis attended a pool party in the
Cloverdale neighborhood of Savannah, Georgia. As he left the party with his
friend Daryl Collins, the occupants of a passing car yelled obscenities. A
bullet was fired at the passing car and Michael Cooper, a passenger, was struck
in the jaw. Davis and Collins then went to a pool hall on Oglethorpe Avenue in
the Yamacraw Village section of Savannah.
Later that evening, Davis and Collins proceeded to the parking lot of a
Burger King restaurant on Oglethorpe Avenue, not far from the pool hall. There
they encountered Sylvester "Redd" Coles arguing with a homeless man,
Larry Young, over alcohol.
At about 1:15 am on August 19, 1989, Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police
officer working as a security guard, attempted to intervene in the
pistol-whipping of Young at the parking lot. MacPhail was shot twice: once
through the heart and once in the face. He did not draw his gun. Bullets and
shell casings which were determined to have come from a .38-caliber pistol were
retrieved from the crime scene. Witnesses to the shooting agreed that a man in
a white shirt had struck Young and then shot MacPhail.
On August 19, Coles told Savannah Police he had seen Davis with a
.38-caliber gun, and that Davis had assaulted Young. The same evening, Davis drove to Atlanta with
his sister. In the early morning of August 20, 1989, Savannah Police searched
the Davis home and seized a pair of Davis's shorts which were found in a
clothes dryer. Davis's family began negotiating with police, motivated by
concerns about his safety; local drug dealers were making death threats because
the police dragnet seeking Davis had disrupted their business. On August 23,
1989, Davis returned to Savannah, surrendered himself to police and was charged
with MacPhail's murder.
Check the video of Supporters gather for twentieth anniversary of Mark MacPhail's murder:
Van Brimmer: MacPhail family readies for next act
in painful tragedy
Posted: September 19, 2011 -
12:12am | Updated: September 19, 2011 - 4:53pm
Sometime last night, the family of slain Savannah
police officer Mark Allen MacPhail gathered to prepare. They cried. They
prayed. They remembered.
More than anything, they steeled themselves for the
drama that lies ahead this week.
Twenty-two years have passed since MacPhail was
gunned down while aiding a homeless man being assaulted outside the downtown
bus station. A jury would convict Troy Anthony Davis for the crime two years later.
The judge sentenced Davis, who was also convicted
of an aggravated assault of another man using the same gun on the same day, to
the death penalty.
Davis has claimed innocence since the shooting. So
the family expected the series of appeals, hearings, stays and other delays —
such as this summer’s moratorium on executions while the state switched from
one lethal injection drug to another — that have prolonged Davis’ time on
Earth.
The latest potential postponement is today. The
Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will consider a clemency request. The
board has granted one stay, in 2007, but Davis and his attorneys have failed to
convince state and federal courts he deserves a retrial in the years since.
Still, the MacPhail family knows to expect the unexpected
leading up to Davis’ execution, scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the state
prison in Jackson.
“We were inside the prison walls, outside of the
car, walking, a stone’s throw from the door, in 2008 when they came out and
told us to go home, that a stay had been granted,” said MacPhail’s son, Mark
Jr. “It was over. Then it wasn’t. So we’ll be ready for anything.”
A heavy burden
Mark Jr. speaks for his family on the ordeal. He’s
considered the best-suited to handle the responsibility but not because he’s
the male head of the family. He’s the only one of the children who can handle
it emotionally.
Mark Jr. was 2 months old when his father was
killed. He has no memories of his dad.
“My sister can remember playing with my dad in the
yard, running around with him and the family dog, Rebel,” said Mark Jr., who is
almost two years younger than his sibling. “It’s so real for her that it’s too
painful.”
Mark Jr. suffers, too. In far too many ways, his
relationship with his father — and his life in general — is defined by the
murder.
He moved away from Savannah with his mother and
sister a decade ago, yet chose to return for college. He enrolled in Armstrong
Atlantic State University as a biology major only to switch to criminal
justice.
He carries with him a jump drive that includes all
the details of his father’s case and Davis’ appeals. He’s gotten to know his
father as much through relationships with police officers who served with his
dad as through family stories and recollections.
“I love my dad; I know my dad,” Mark Jr. said.
“It’s just I can’t pick up the phone to talk with him. I have to visit the
cemetery.”
Even Mark Jr.’s understanding of hate stems from
his father’s slaying.
He learned upon his return to Savannah in 2009 to
introduce himself around town simply as Mark. He’s been “cussed out” and been
called “every nasty name you can think of and some you can’t” by strangers when
he gives his full name.
“That hurts,” Mark Jr. said. “It’s like my dad did
something wrong that night. Or my family has done something wrong since.”
Peace and justice
The MacPhail family’s mistake, in the eyes of those
who verbally abuse Mark Jr., is in wanting to see Davis executed.
The family, like the jury, is convinced beyond a
reasonable doubt Davis shot officer MacPhail once in the chest. Then Davis
stood over the wounded officer and delivered the coup de grace, a bullet to the
face.
Yet Mark Jr.’s eyes don’t burn with fury when
talking about his father’s executioner. What the MacPhails have been groping
for over the past two decades, and will find only when Davis is dead, is peace.
Each delay in the execution has felt like a new
stab to an almost healed wound. The MacPhails can live with the scar, but they
are tired of stitching the gash shut.
“It’s not animosity or anger or rage that has kept
us going; that’s not what my father would want,” Mark Jr. said. “It’s justice.
The law is what he was all about. That’s what we have to uphold. We have to
demonstrate that you kill a police officer, you face the ultimate punishment.”
Mark Jr. keeps something other than the file on his
father’s case on his jump drive. He also tracks the deaths of other police
officers killed in the line of duty. Nationwide this year, the number exceeds
100.
Davis’ execution won’t bring any of those cops
back, but if it scares even one would-be cop-killer straight, MacPhail’s death
will be more than an incomprehensible tragedy to his son.
“I have no visitation rights with my father. I
can’t send him a Father’s Day card in jail. I can’t share my dreams and fears
with him through a piece of Plexiglas,” Mark Jr. said. “But there’s other sons,
other daughters, wives, fathers and mothers of police officers out there, and
none should have to go through the pain my family has.
“We’ve suffered enough for everybody.”
To know more about the truth that Troy Davis is guilty, Please read the
following links:
2. Read U.S Federal
Judge, William Theodore Moore Jr.’s 172 page ruling http://multimedia.savannahnow.com/media/pdfs/DavisRuling082410.pdf
 |
Federal Judge William
Theodore Moore Jr.
|
In August
2010, Moore ruled on the prominent Troy Davis case. Davis was a Georgia inmate
on death row, accused and convicted of murdering a police officer in 1989.
Davis's guilt has been questioned, due to the release of new information,
including the complete or partial recantation of the testimonies of seven (out
of nine total) prosecution victims. In his ruling, Moore stated that Davis and
his legal team had failed to demonstrate his innocence, as the added
information was "largely smoke and mirrors" and added only
"minimal doubt"; Moore dismissed four recantations as not credible,
and two of them as only partly credible, finding that only one was wholly
credible. He did not consider the alleged confessions of Redd Cole, another
suspect in the case, because of the failure of Davis's lawyers to subpoena
Coles and give him opportunity for rebuttal, and suggested that Davis should
appeal directly to the Supreme Court.
Davis was executed by
lethal injection on September 21, 2011.
In response to the Supreme Court order, a two-day hearing was held in
June 2010 in a federal district court in Savannah in front of Judge William
Moore. Former prosecution witness Antoine Williams stated he did not know who
had shot MacPhail, and that because he was illiterate he could not read the
police statements he had signed in 1989. Other prosecution witnesses Jeffrey
Sapp and Kevin MacQueen testified that Davis had not confessed to them as they
had stated at the initial trial. Darrell Collins also recanted his previous
evidence that he had seen Davis shoot Cooper and MacPhail. The witnesses
variously described their previous testimony against Davis as being the result
of feeling scared, of feeling frightened and pressured by police or to get
revenge in a conflict with Davis. Anthony Hargrove testified that Redd Coles
had admitted the killing to him. The state's lawyers described Hargrove's
testimony as hearsay evidence; Judge William T. Moore permitted the evidence
but stated that unless Coles appeared, he might give the evidence "no
weight whatsoever." Another witness making a similar statement was heard,
but a third was rejected by Judge Moore as the claims were inadmissible hearsay
because Coles was not called as a witness and given the opportunity for
rebuttal. Moore criticized the decision not to call Coles, saying that he was
"one of the most critical witnesses to Davis's defense". One of Davis's
lawyers stated that the day before they had been unsuccessful in serving a
subpoena on Coles; Moore responded that the attempt had been made too late,
given that the hearing date had been set months in advance.
State attorneys called current and former police officers and the two
lead prosecutors, who testified that the investigation had been careful, and
that no witnesses had been coerced or threatened. The lead detective testified
that his investigation was "very meticulous and careful… I was in no rush
just to pick the first guy we got our hands on. I wanted the right guy."
He stated that witnesses gave "strikingly similar descriptions on how the
shooter was dressed", mostly describing the shooter as wearing a white
T-shirt and dark pants, which other witnesses said Davis was wearing that
evening. A state attorney asserted that the testimony of at least five
prosecution witnesses remained unchallenged, and the evidence of Davis's guilt
was overwhelming. In July 2010, Davis's lawyers filed a motion asking Moore to
reconsider his decision to exclude testimony from a witness to a confession by
Coles, but in August 2010, Moore stood by his initial decision, stating that in
not calling Coles, Davis's lawyers were seeking to implicate Coles without
desiring his rebuttal.
Moore ruled that executing an innocent person would violate the Eighth
Amendment. "However, Mr. Davis is not innocent." In his decision,
Moore wrote: "while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional,
minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors." Of the
seven papers described as recantations by the defense, Moore found that only
one was wholly credible and two were partly credible. He did not consider
Coles' alleged confessions because of the failure of Davis's lawyers to
subpoena Coles, and suggested that Davis should appeal directly to the Supreme
Court. In November 2010, the federal appeals panel dismissed an appeal on the
case, without ruling on its merits. They stated that Davis should appeal the
case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court "because he had exhausted his
other avenues of relief." Rosemary Barkett, one of the panel judges, later
released a statement saying that although she agreed with the decision, she
still believed that Davis should be given a new trial.
3. Charles Lane, journalist http://www.webcitation.org/61v86eswz
4. Alexander Baron, journalist http://digitaljournal.com/article/311881
5. Ann Coulter, journalist http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-09-21.html
6. Former Chatham County Prosecutor, Spencer Lawton http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/20/prosecutor-says-he-has-no-doubt-about-troy-davis-guilt/
7. Articles by Dudley Sharp http://homicidesurvivors.com/2011/09/18/troy-davis-misleading-anti-death-penalty-campaign.aspx
& http://www.opposingviews.com/i/troy-davis-innocence-claims-are-rubbish-from-start-to-finish
 |
Federal Judge William
Theodore Moore Jr.
|
I do show my utmost empathy and
sympathy for the MacPhail children as they have to spend 22 years without a
father. I thank God that finally justice has been served for them, as the cop
killer, Troy Davis had paid with his life on 21 September 2011. They should
thank the Federal Judge William Theodore Moore Jr. for his great research and
for not giving in to the criminal rights activists.
Lord Chief Justice Rayner Goddard, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Alex Kozinski, Chalerm Ubumrung and Lech Aleksander Kaczyński will be proud of you,
Federal Judge Moore! Well done, may God bless you in your life.
Please click on this blog post to hear what the Macphail family has to
say after the execution of Troy Davis. I will post an article on 21 September
2012 to mark the first anniversary of the execution of Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer.
No comments:
Post a Comment