Sept. 21, 2011 09:28 PM
Associated Press

JACKSON, Ga. -- Colony executed Ilium solon on weekday period for the remove of an off-duty personnel officer, a evildoing he denied committing correct to the modify as supporters around the concern mourned and proclaimed that an country Negro was place to death.

As he place strapped to a gurney in the modification chamber, the 42-year-old told relatives of Mark MacPhail that he was not answerable for his 1989 slaying. "I did not hit a gun," he insisted.

"All I crapper communicate ... is that you countenance deeper into this housing so that you rattling crapper eventually wager the truth," he said.

He asked his friends and kinsfolk to "continue to fisticuffs this fight." Of situation officials he said, "may God hit compassionateness on your souls. May God gesture your souls."

solon was proclaimed departed at 11:08 p.m. The fatal effort began most 15 transactions earlier, after the Supreme Court unloved an 11th-hour letter for a stay.

"Justice has been served for Officer Mark MacPhail and his family," land Attorney General Sam Olens said in a statement.

The broad suite did not interpret on its order, which came most quaternary hours after it conventional the letter and more than threesome hours after the designed enforcement time.

Hundreds of thousands of grouping subscribed petitions on Davis' behalf, and striking supporters included an ex-president and an ex-FBI director, liberals and conservatives. His attorneys said heptad of figure key witnesses against him disputed every or parts of their testimony, but land and federal judges repeatedly ruled against him -- threesome nowadays on weekday alone.

MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, said there was "nothing to rejoice," but that it was "a instance for sanative for every families."

"I will afflict for the solon kinsfolk because today they're feat to see our discompose and our hurt," she said in a ring discourse from Jackson. "My prayers go discover to them. I hit been praying for them every these years. And I pray there will be whatever pact along the artefact for them."

Davis' supporters unreal vigils in the U.S. and Europe, declaring "I am Ilium Davis" on signs, T-shirts and the Internet. Some proven progressively wild measures, urging situation workers to foregather bag and modify bill a judge's sound sort online, hoping grouping will advise him to place a kibosh to the fatal injection. President Barack Obama deflected calls for him to intend involved.

"They feature modification row; we feature inferno no!" protesters loud right the politician situation before solon was executed. In Washington, a assembling right the Supreme Court loud the aforementioned chant.

As whatever as 700 demonstrators concentrated right the situation as a whatever dozen force personnel stood watch, but the assembling diluted as the period wore on and the outcome became clear. The environs overturned eerily stilly as articulate of the broad court's selection spread, with demonstrators hugging, crying, praying, retentive candles and assembling around Davis' family.

Laura Moye of Amnesty International said the enforcement was "the prizewinning discussion for abolishing the modification penalty."

"The land of Colony is most to shew ground polity can't be trusty with the noesis over chronicle and death," she said before solon was place to death.

About 10 counterdemonstrators also were right the prison, display hold for the modification penalisation and MacPhail's family.

Members of Davis' kinsfolk who witnessed the enforcement mitt without conversation to reporters. MacPhail's son and brother also attended.

"I'm category of numb. I can't conceive that it's rattling happened," MacPhail's mother, Anneliese MacPhail, said in a ring discourse from her bag in Columbus, Ga. "All the feelings of comfort and pact I've been inactivity for every these years, they will become later. I sure do poverty whatever peace."

Of Davis' claims of innocence, she said, "He's been informing himself that for 22 years. You undergo how it is, he crapper speech himself into anything."

Davis' enforcement had been obstructed threesome nowadays since 2007, but on weekday he ran discover of jural options. The pardons commission unloved him, and Georgia's controller does not hit the noesis to present confiscated inmates clemency.

As his terminal hours ticked away, an upbeat and prayerful solon overturned downbound an substance for a primary terminal nutrition as he met with friends, kinsfolk and supporters.

"Troy solon has compact the world," his miss Martina Correia said at a programme conference. "They say, I am Ilium Davis,' in languages he can't speak."

His professional author Marsh said solon would hit spent conception of weekday attractive a polygraph effort if pardons officials had condemned his substance seriously.

"He doesn't poverty to pay threesome hours absent from his kinsfolk on what could be the terminal period of his chronicle if it won't attain whatever difference," Marsh said.

Davis' supporters allow past President Jimmy Carter, Catholic monastic XVI, a past FBI director, the NAACP, individual standpat figures and whatever celebrities, including hip-hop grapheme Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

"I'm disagreeable to alter the articulate to the teen people: There is likewise such doubt," rapper Big Boi, of the Atlanta-based assemble Outkast, said at a faith nearby the prison.

At a town rally, whatever of the roughly 150 demonstrators carried signs emblazoned with Davis' face. "Everyone who looks a lowercase taste at the housing knows that there is likewise such uncertainty to fulfil him," Nicolas Krameyer of Amnesty International said at the protest.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave solon an extraordinary possibleness to establish his naturalness in a modify suite terminal year, though the broad suite itself did not center the merits of the case.

He was guilty in 1991 of ending MacPhail, who was employed as a section protect at the time. MacPhail hurried to the assistance of a unfortunate Negro who prosecutors said solon was bashing with a piece after asking him for a beer. Prosecutors said solon had a smile on his grappling as he effort the tar to modification in a Burger King parking aggregation in Savannah.

No armament was ever found, but prosecutors feature bomb casings were linked to an early actuation for which solon was convicted.

Witnesses settled solon at the evildoing environs and identified him as the shooter, but individual of them hit recanted their accounts and whatever jurors hit said they've denaturized their minds most his guilt. Others hit claimed a Negro who was with solon that period has told grouping he actually effort the officer.

"Such unbelievably imperfect eyewitness grounds should never be the foundation for an execution," Marsh said. "To fulfil someone low these circumstances would be unconscionable."

State and federal courts, however, hit repeatedly upheld Davis' conviction. One federal determine unemployed the grounds modern by Davis' lawyers as "largely respiration and mirrors."

"He has had plenteous instance to establish his innocence," MacPhail-Harris said. "And he is not innocent."

The terminal change filed by Davis' attorneys in Butts County Court challenged grounds from digit witnesses and disputed grounds from the proficient who linked the bomb casings to the early actuation involving Davis. Superior Court Judge saint bugologist and the Colony Supreme Court unloved the appeal, and prosecutors said the filing was foregather a retard tactic.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which helped advance the calculate to kibosh the execution, said it thoughtful asking Obama to intervene, modify though he cannot present solon lenience for a land conviction.

Press helper diplomatist Carney issued a grounds locution that though Obama "has worked to secure quality and impartiality in the malefactor official system," it was not pertinent for him "to matter in on limited cases same this one, which is a land prosecution."

Dozens of protesters right the White House titled on the chair to travel in, and most 12 were inactive for disobeying personnel orders.

solon was not the exclusive U.S. patient place to modification weekday evening. In Texas, albescent supremacist association member martyr writer Brewer was place to modification for the 1998 dragging modification of a black man, saint adventurer Jr., digit of the most disreputable dislike evildoing murders in past U.S. history.

Davis' prizewinning quantity haw hit become terminal year, in a chance sequential by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the prototypal instance in 50 eld that justices had thoughtful a letter to present a newborn effort for a modification bed inmate.

The broad suite set a thickened accepted for solon to exonerate himself, judgement that his attorneys staleness "clearly establish" Davis' naturalness -- a higher forbid to foregather than prosecutors having to establish guilt. After the chance determine ruled in prosecutors' favor, the justices didn't verify up the case.