in August 2010, Moore stood by his initial decision, stating that in not calling Coles, Davis's lawyers were seeking to implicate Coles without desiring his rebuttal. Moore ruled that executing an innocent person would violate the Eighth Amendment. "However, Mr. Davis is not innocent." In his decision, Moore wrote: "while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors." Moore gave Benjamin Gordon's testimony no credit because the testimony came late and the judge believed Gordon would say anything to help Mr. Davis, despite no evidence that Mr. Gordon knew Mr. Davis. Of the seven papers described as recantations by the defense, Moore found that only one was wholly credible and two were partly credible. He did not consider Coles' alleged confessions because of the failure of Davis's lawyers to subpoena Coles, and suggested that Davis should appeal directly to the Supreme Court. In November 2010, the federal appeals panel dismissed an appeal on the case, without ruling on its merits. They stated that Davis should appeal the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court "because he had exhausted his other avenues of relief." Rosemary Barkett, one of the panel judges, later released a statement saying that although she agreed with the decision, she still believed that Davis should be given a new trial. Renewed U.S. Supreme Court petition In January 2011, Davis's legal team filed a new petition with the United States Supreme Court, alleging that District Judge Moore had "evinced a clear hostility" against Davis during the August 2010 hearing, and again asking for a new trial. The petition was rejected without comment by the Supreme Court in March 2011, allowing a new execution date. In May 2011, Amnesty International and People of Faith Against the Death Penalty asked religious leaders to sign a petition to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles calling for the commutation of Davis's death sentence. By September 17, 2011, over 660,000 people had signed the petition for clemency including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Wilton Gregory, William Sessions (former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation), former President Jimmy Carter and representatives for the European Parliament. In contrast, law enforcement officials such as Spencer Lawton, the former Chatham County prosecutor who put Davis on trial, remained convinced of the evidence for Davis's guilt and that Davis's supporters "would know differently if