unfair jury selection, ineffective defense counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. The decision was appealed to the 11th Circuit Court, which heard oral arguments in the case in September 2005. On September 26, 2006, the court affirmed the denial of federal habeas corpus relief, and determined that Davis had not made "a substantive claim of actual innocence" or shown that his trial was constitutionally unfair; the circuit court found that neither prosecutors nor defense counsel had acted improperly or incompetently at trial. A petition for panel rehearing was denied in December 2006. Legal experts argued that a major obstacle to granting Davis a new trial was the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, passed after the Oklahoma City bombing, which bars death row inmates from later presenting evidence they could have presented at trial. Members of the legal community have criticized the restricting effect of the 1996 Act on the ability of wrongfully convicted persons to prove their innocence. First execution date On June 25, 2007, Davis's first certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied, and his execution was then set for July 17, 2007. Davis's case gained increasing public exposure and support from organizations and prominent individuals. 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