Read the text about the Troy Davis case. Choose a word from the list for each blank. There are TWO words you will not need.


Troy Davis was an African American who was and executed for the murder of a police officer in the car park of a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. The killing occurred in August 1989, when a guard tried to stop Davis from attacking a man. Seven said that they had seen Davis actually shoot the officer, while two others that Davis had the murder to them. Although the murder weapon was never found and there was no physical that Davis had been at the crime scene, he was sentenced to death in 1991.

In the 20 years between the first and his execution in 2011, Troy Davis repeatedly said that he had not the crime. Famous people, including former president Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI, as well as human organizations, tried to help Davis. Even people in favour of the death penalty Davis and stated that a possibly innocent person should not be executed.

In 2009 the United States Supreme Court decided that the case should be again. Some of the witnesses who had seen the shooting said that they were not sure any more if Davis had been the killer. In 2010 the court the sentence and set an execution date. After a number of had failed, Davis was finally executed through lethal injection on September 21, 2011. Even a , signed by a million people, could not stop the execution.

The Troy Davis case triggered angry reactions and across the world. Top level officials in the European Union, which is extremely of capital punishment, said that a person should not be punishment if there are serious doubts about his .

Protests during the Troy Davis execution
Image: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons