## Facts

- Troy Anthony Davis, a Georgia death-row prisoner, was convicted in 1991 for the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail.
- After trial, Davis presented multiple affidavits, including recantations by several prosecution witnesses and statements implicating the State’s principal witness as the shooter.
- State courts denied relief, including an extraordinary motion for a new trial, finding the new evidence likely would not change the verdict.
- The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency after hearing witnesses.
- Federal habeas relief was denied in the Eleventh Circuit; the court noted that no court had conducted an evidentiary hearing to test the reliability of the postconviction affidavits.
- Davis filed an original petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. Supreme Court under Supreme Court Rule 20.4, asserting actual innocence based on evidence not available at trial.

## Issues

1. Whether the Supreme Court should exercise its original habeas jurisdiction to require factual development of an actual-innocence claim based on newly presented evidence.
2. Whether an evidentiary hearing should be ordered to determine whether evidence unavailable at trial clearly establishes the petitioner’s innocence.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court granted motions to file amicus briefs.
- The Court transferred the original habeas petition to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia for hearing and determination.
- The Court directed the district court to receive testimony and make findings of fact on whether evidence that could not have been obtained at trial clearly establishes the petitioner’s innocence.
- The Court did not decide the merits of innocence or whether a freestanding constitutional innocence claim is cognizable.
- Justice Sotomayor took no part in the consideration or decision.

## Legal Principles

- The Supreme Court may, in exceptional circumstances, employ its original habeas authority and transfer the matter to a district court for evidentiary development and factfinding.
- Where no prior court has tested the reliability of substantial postconviction evidence bearing on innocence in a capital case, an evidentiary hearing may be ordered to assess whether new evidence clearly establishes innocence.
- The order left unresolved the relationship between AEDPA limitations and an original habeas petition presenting an actual-innocence claim.

## Conclusion

The Court took the rare procedural step of transferring an original habeas petition to a federal district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing and make factual findings on whether newly obtainable evidence clearly establishes a condemned prisoner’s innocence, while reserving broader constitutional and statutory questions for later resolution.


In re Davis, 557 U.S. 952 (2009)