A Stay With Two Hours To Go

The Troy Davis case down in Georgia is getting some national and international attention, but not nearly enough.

In short, Troy Davis (an African American) was convicted of killing a (white) police officer in 1991 and sentenced to death. Since the trial, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, some claiming that the prosecutor threatened to charge them with perjury if they had recanted at the time.

Yesterday, after various parole board and court denials, Troy was two hours from lethal injection when his last channel of hope, the Supreme Court of the United States, put a stay on his execution until they review the case next week.

I freely admit that I don't know much about the case except that there's no physical evidence and that the prosecution won its conviction based on the testimony of the witnesses.

As we know, in recent years, SCOTUS has taken a sharp turn to the right (activist judges, indeed), so I have little faith that they'll overturn the conviction, order a new trial, etc. Call me cynical.

But if there's any doubt at all, how can capital punishment be used to put this man to death?

Wait. Scratch that. How can the state sanction the murder of any individual, whatever the crime? It's fucking medieval.

Naturally, both of our major party candidates for president support the death penalty. That makes both of them more cynical than I am. After all, putting someone to death denies the possibility of redemption on any level.

If you want to read more about Troy and his case, this is his website. I've heard interviews with his sister (the radio program Democracy Now is following the case), and she's fighting this battle and a recurrence of cancer. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), she's impressive.