A man sentenced to die for killing a Savannah police officer in 1989 should be allowed to present new evidence to show he did not commit the crime, his lawyer told the federal appeals court in Atlanta on Wednesday.

Troy Anthony Davis was condemned to die in 1991, convicted of killing Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. At the time, MacPhail, 27, responded to a melee outside the Greyhound bus station where he was shot repeatedly at close range.

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But since the trial, six of the nine prosecution witnesses who implicated or named Davis as the killer have renounced much of the testimony used to convict him.

This includes some who identified Davis at trial as the triggerman but who now say they did not see him pull the trigger and were pressured by police to say otherwise.

Some of the witnesses' recantations have been documented in sworn affidavits obtained by Davis' new lawyers. Two of those witnesses confirmed their new claims in interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Despite the new evidence, Davis was previously denied a hearing on his innocence claims by U.S. District Judge John Nangle in Savannah.

During Wednesday's arguments, lawyer Kathleen Behan asked the appeals court to order the judge to hold a hearing on the new evidence. "This new evidence must be heard," she said. "I believe my client, Troy Davis, is actually innocent."

But Susan Boleyn, a lawyer for the state attorney general's office, said that in past years state courts, and more recently Nangle, had considered Davis' new claims and rejected them.

Boleyn also dismissed the recantations. "You may find it compelling testimony," she told the court. "I don't. I think it was rank hearsay."

Judge Rosemary Barkett expressed concern that Davis has not been allowed a hearing in federal court to present the new evidence. "If these people say, 'I was coerced by the police,' how could he reject that without a hearing?" she asked, referring to Nangle.

The 11th Circuit is not expected to issue its ruling for several months.