The Supreme Court has taken the rare step of ordering a federal trial court to conduct a new hearing for Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. The high court ordered the new hearing to determine “whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes” Davis’s innocence. Since Davis was convicted for the 1989 killing of a white police officer, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony. There is no direct physical evidence tying Davis to the crime scene. Troy Davis’s sister Martina Correia recently appeared on Democracy Now!

Martina Correia: “These people were easily manipulated. They built this case around Troy with no physical evidence, no DNA. And what they did is they ran on the excitement and the adrenaline that we have to get somebody for this police officer’s murder, we have to appease community. And, you know, it got to the point where they were attacking so many black men that it’s like any black man will do. And when Sylvester Coles came and pointed at Troy, everything dropped, and they just built a case around Troy.”