Authorities rejected a last-minute attempt by a convict set to be executed yesterday to show his innocence by taking a polygraph test.
Lawyers for Troy Davis, scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7pm local time (1am Irish time), requested a polygraph for their client but prison officials turned them down.
Davis’s case has attracted international attention and an online protest that has accumulated nearly one million signatures because of doubts expressed in some quarters over whether he killed police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989.
His best hope of avoiding execution lay with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, but on Tuesday it denied him clemency following a one-day hearing.
“Troy is so insistent of his innocence that he is willing to take a polygraph,” said Laura Moye, a spokeswoman for Amnesty.
Davis was convicted of murdering MacPhail outside a Burger King restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. MacPhail’s family say he is guilty and should be executed.
Since his conviction, seven of nine witnesses have changed or recanted their testimony, some have said they were coerced by police to testify and some say another man committed the crime. No physical evidence linked Davis to the killing.