Georgia may have put an innocent man to death.

Troy Davis was convicted in 1991 in the shooting death of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a Burger King when he saw a man in another parking lot being assaulted. His instincts as an officer kicked in, and he stepped in to prevent the man from being injured any further or worse. One of the assailants produced a weapon and shot MacPhail, ending his life.

In 1991, prosecutors were able to convince a jury that the murderer was Troy Davis.

But there was and has been a considerable degree of doubt. Witnesses recanted testimony and some even implicated another man in the crime, two of whom claimed he confessed to them that he, and not Davis, killed Mark MacPhail. No solid physical evidence linked Davis to the crime, except for ballistics tests that matched the shell casings to those found at another shooting in which Davis was implicated. Those casings were kept in the same evidence bag, a confusion that prosecutors claim they cleared up  despite skepticism from legal scholars and Davis supporters.  There are other factors and circumstances as well that create something far greater than reasonable doubt, but in the end the desire to save face and exact vengeance overwhelmed logic, reason, and all those things we hold as cornerstones of American justice.

Executing a man in the 21st Century should require extenuating circumstances, particularly since advancements in forensics have provided us with astounding methods of ascertaining guilt, some of which were unheard of in previous decades. More importantly, as the self-imposed defenders of democracy and social justice and as leaders of the free world, we have an obligation to ensure that the possibility of killing one innocent man overrules the desire to seek out vengeance and retribution. Putting a person to death provides little closure, and if it does, it provides much more for those who bank their reputation and bang their gavel on a public fetish for true crime drama and bloodlust.

I will not sit here and tell you that I know for certain in my head or my heart that Troy Davis did not kill Mark MacPhail. I will tell you, though, that there wasn’t enough in 1991 to warrant an execution and there’s more evidence now to suggest the possibility that he was innocent. I’d rather we not live in a country with a death penalty, but if we’re going to have it, then we have to be damn sure. We weren’t, and too many of the right people looked the other way.

If you are proud to be an American tonight, then it must be for something other than what happened at 11:08pm in Savannah, Georgia.

13 Responses to Troy Davis and the burden of putting a man to death

  1. Amy says:

    You are so right. It’s shameful, appalling. Trying to imagine myself in the shoes of all those who let this happen–who looked at the information, had the opportunity to stop it and instead said, “I want this other human being to die.”

  2. You tell yourself that justice will be served and that a man that has not been proven guilty of a crime, will be executed for it. You tell yourself that this country has learned lessons of a past that executed black men without proof of guilt. You wait for some kind of merciful intervention for a man that has unjustly served more than twenty years for the testimony of witnesses that have recanted.
    Later you hear that this man has been executed and you realized that justice is a facade for people of color, for the poor and whatever else society deems as expendable. Somebody had to be blamed for the officer’s death. Some one pointed out Troy Davis and he became that man.

    What a gutless society. We owed this man more and look at what he got.
    The fact is Troy Davis never had a chance. He was not Casey Anthony. A black man accused of murder must be a killer, but a young white girl could not possibly murder her daughter. Why two very different standards of justice. When are black people going to be free of being judged by the color of their skin? Why is the color black automatically criminal or something less than good or pure? When is race going to cease to be a reason to compromise justice?
    Over a million voices went unheard tonight. If justice did not hear a million voices, what about the black man who has no one to speak for him?

    Khalilah Sabra
    Muslim American Society (MAS) Immigrant Justice Clinic

  3. Michael Rivest says:

    Great post, Kevin. In 1997, Illinois halted executions when DNA testing found 52% of their deathrow inmates were innocent. In Texas, NINE people were found innocent after their executions. Those executed nationally often have I.Q.s under 70, and are dispropotionately poor, mentally ill – and, of course, black.

    There are more compelling arguments against the death penalty than the one below, of course, but it ought to be enough all by itself:

    “People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty … I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court, on eve-of-execution stay applications, in which the defendant was well represented at trial.”
    – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice 2001

  4. CAK says:

    A very sad day indeed – for Troy Davis, his family, the victim and his family and America as a whole. And a situation often repeated across our country. RIP Troy Davis.

  5. Alison Floyd says:

    This situation was wrong in many ways. The fact that there are other people in society who have committed worse crimes and were not put to death makes me sick. Troy Davis was not even the proven killer. What does it say about our justice system that we have killed someone we weren’t even sure actually committed the crime?

  6. Jango Davis says:

    Khalilah Sabra-The application of the death penalty in America affects all races. If Davis was white, the result would have been the same. A DA, judge, legal system will never admit they are wrong, least all of their cases come under scrutiny.

    There is no doubt that there is racism in America, however, the rage against the Anthony verdict was loud and intense and she has been hounded into hiding. I wonder why you are so quick to call America a land of racists when the evidence of so many people outraged at these verdicts is right before you?

    The legal system will quickly cover its own, such as the case with the state trooper Beardsley who the Hamilton County Grand Jury refused to indict (Beardsley ran over a man with car after a party and drove away). This, for me, is the greater issue. The legal system fixes itself to protect its own, and to protect its system.

    You call us a gutless society Khalilah, I think you’re just a sad stereotype.

  7. Ellen says:

    Execution is barbaric… we are a nation that should be above this type of behavior. Shame on us!

  8. Cihan says:

    Executions have no place in a supposedly enlightened nation that is supposed to be respecting human rights. I am disgusted. I have a feeling that they killed him because this case was so politicized, and started to become a symbol against the death penalty as a whole.

  9. Michael Rivest says:

    @ 6 – Be cautious tossing around accusations, Jango. You know who we are, but you express all of your brave opinions, daily and oh-so-courageously – here and on so many other blogs – behind the screen of the same pseudonym. What does that make you? Have the courage of your convictions, man. Especially when you resort to name calling.

  10. Gman says:

    Deep down, Americans are really a very primitive lot – our heroes were the dockyard thugs of Boston who fomented a revolution of the local aristocracy and the deliberative ones all got booted to Canada in 1783. C’est la vie.

    Realizing that, the best I can do is to acknowledge that, should one of my loved ones be murdered, I would want badly to dispatch the killer myself and would perhaps do whatever it took to do so – but I could never expect the state to do so.

  11. HomeTownGirl says:

    I have, and always will be, completely against the death pentalty. And in this particular case, it’s even more sickening. How do those who chose this for Troy Davis sleep peacefully? I would be sick if I thought there was even a remote chance that I had sentenced an innocent man to his death.

  12. Roger Green says:

    Hope you saw my blog post. especially since it mentioned you.
    http://blog.timesunion.com/rogergreen/justice-denied/2377/

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