Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged the courts to agree to hear the evidence of police coercion and recanted testimony. An appeal to Governor of Georgia Sonny Perdue urging him to spare Davis's life was sent on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI. Similar appeals were sent by singer Harry Belafonte, Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking", and actor Mike Farrell. Amnesty International published a report about Davis's case characterizing it as a miscarriage of justice and a "catastrophic flaw in the U.S. death penalty machine." The human rights group initiated a letter-writing campaign and delivered 4,000 letters to the clemency board. William S. Sessions, former FBI Director and federal judge, called on authorities to halt the execution process, writing that "[i]t would be intolerable to execute a man without his claims of innocence ever being considered by the courts or by the executive". Politicians and others such as Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Sheila Jackson Lee, and former Texas District Attorney Sam D. Millsap, Jr., and the organization Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation requested that the courts grant Davis a new trial. U.S. Congressman John Lewis spoke to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, suggesting that Coles – one of the witnesses who had not recanted – was the real killer. Representatives from the Council of Europe and European Parliament also spoke out on Davis's case, asking U.S. authorities to halt the planned execution and calling for a new trial. On July 16, 2007, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles granted a ninety-day stay of execution in order to allow the evaluation of evidence presented, including the doubts about Davis's guilt. The stay was superseded by the August 2007 decision of the Georgia Supreme Court to grant Davis' application for discretionary appeal from the denial of his Extraordinary Motion for a New Trial. Defense lawyers requested a new trial based on statements of mistaken identity. On March 17, 2008, the Georgia Supreme Court denied the appeal by a 4–3 majority. The majority wrote that the recanting witnesses "have merely stated they now do not feel able to identify the shooter", that the trial testimony could not be ignored, and that they "in fact, favor[ed] that original testimony over the new." In dissent, the Chief Justice wrote that "if recantation testimony, either alone or supported by other evidence, shows convincingly that prior trial testimony was false, it simply defies all logic and morality to hold that it must be disregarded categorically".