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TechnoratiNine Executioners
"The assessment of the death penalty, however well designed the system for doing so, remains a human endeavor with a consequent risk of error that may not be remediable." - Judge Carolyn King of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, 2006.
Having reported on the Supreme Court in books and columns for decades, I am well aware of King's assessment, but never before have I seen such an outright denial of fundamental justice as, on Oct. 14, when the Supreme Court sent Troy Anthony Davis to be executed.
This case, Davis' lawyers told the Supreme Court in July, "allows this court an opportunity to determine what it has only before assumed: that the execution of an innocent man is constitutionally abhorrent." In this country and around the world, the basic fairness of Davis' conviction has been questioned by, among others, conservative former Congressman Bob Barr, a strong supporter of the death penalty; Pope Benedict XVI; and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of murdering an off-duty Savannah, Ga., police officer in 1989.
I have been most impressed by a statement from William Sessions, the director of the FBI under President Reagan, the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton: "Troy Anthony Davis has been on death row in Georgia for more than 15 years for the murder of a police officer. ... I believe that there is no more serious violent crime than the murder of an off-duty police officer who was putting his life on the line to protect innocent bystanders." However, in the case of 40-year-old Davis, Sessions continued: "The murder weapon was never found, and other important physical evidence was missing. Key witnesses made inconsistent statements, and seven out of the nine non-police witnesses have now recanted or changed their original testimony, some stating that they had been pressured by the police to implicate Davis." Moreover - and I write this as I found out that an execution date for Davis has been set for Oct. 27 in Georgia - the Supreme Court, our ultimate decider of due process - had also ignored that, Sessions emphasizes, "One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony has now been implicated as the real murderer by two witnesses at trial and four new witnesses." Is that enough reasonable doubt? Not for the Supreme Court. There's more. Did Davis, during his trial, receive sufficiently competent legal counsel under our rule of law? Appellate courts have overturned cases when a defendant's lawyer has failed that crucial obligation.
Writes Sessions: "It appears that the quality of legal representation Davis received during trial was, by his own lawyer's account, seriously deficient." Defending Davis was the Georgia Resource Center and, Sessions explains, "A lawyer from the Resource Center stated in an affidavit that 'We were simply trying to avert total disaster rather than provide any kind of active or effective representation."' But nonetheless, the Supreme Court told the state of Georgia to exterminate this man. Sessions' clear, damning analysis of how, despite the Constitution, the High Court rubber-stamped Davis' conviction was published by the Washington-based American Constitution Project. Sessions is a member of its bipartisan Death Penalty Committee. He now reminds us of what the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist - hardly a foe of the death penalty - wrote in 1993: "It is an unalterable fact that our judicial system, like the human beings who administer it, is fallible." Does this exculpate the nine executioners on the Roberts Court in its lethal judgment of Troy Davis? When the Supreme Court, without comment, refused to hear any more from Davis, there was no written record of any member dissenting. This often happens, but there have been times when one or more dissenters were so agonized that they said so on the record. This time, there was silence from even the four "liberal" members of the Court.
In the wee hours, does any member of this Court feel a tug of guilt? They are, after all, human beings, like us. And, though this case has been highly publicized, I detected no shudder among the citizenry at large. They were otherwise occupied with the disintegrating economy and the raucous presidential finale.
Persistently active in trying to save Davis from our justice system has been Amnesty International. Its Southern regional director, Jared Feuer, told The New York Times: "This decision shows how flawed and immoral the death penalty is. The court had been asked to rule on the basic question of guilt and innocence and the constitutional right of an individual to not be executed when there is doubt of his guilt." The doubt is towering. Added Feuer, "The court ducked its obligation." That's too kind. The Court failed the Constitution! There are countries civilized enough to have struck down the death penalty. Maybe, just maybe, Davis will have markedly energized the rising movement in this nation to shut down our death rows.
As for the Roberts Supreme Court, I would serenade it with Hank William's recording of "Cold, Cold Heart" as it continues, despite the warning of the late Justice Harry Blackmun, to "tinker with the machinery of death."
14 Comments so far
Show AllWell, for those in another CD article who love paying taxes, they might get to pay for Troy Davis's execution. They have already paid for him to be on death row for over 19 years. They have also paid for the execution of innocent men and juvenile offenders in Texas.
This is the same supreme court which said that Bush won the 2000 election. What can we really expect from them?
This is one reason that I would like to see Obama in office - I think he would put much, much better people on the Supreme Court and in the Federal Courts. After almost 30 years of backwards appointments, we have courts stated with conservative, backwards ideologues much like Bush has filled the other executive agencies with. The Troy Davis would be a tragedy..but so typical of Georgia and it's long history of racist and unjust application of the death penalty.
I have been unabashedly against the death penalty for so long as I've been able to consider its dire implications for any purportedly "civil" society, but then again, perhaps we'd be better off without civilization. Anyway, I continue to be squarely against putting anyone to death for any reason, including heinous crimes, as life-long incarceration is more fitting and just for those crimes perpetrated against other living, sentient beings (including bombing civilians and sending soldiers to their early deaths). However, in the case of the perpetrators of the extremely virulent type of justice administered by the Supreme Court, I'd be willing to make an exception to my long-standing opposition - for their roles in undermining the last vestiges of democracy and decency under the law in this country, I sentence the nine executioners themselves to death. May their bodies burn brightly to light our way to a more just society.
I oppose and reject the death penalty.
The death penalty is the death penalty, and not amenable to "reform" or administrative improvement; so it is only for argument's sake that I suggest that if we must have a death penalty, the appropriate standard of evidence should be raised from "reasonable doubt" to "moral certainty". And should not be applied conditionally, i.e. to secondary or indirect participation in capital crimes.
It doesn't surprise me that our corrupt, decadent, and malfeasant Supreme Court is not inclined to perpetrate SCOTUS nullification upon the atavistic and barbaric practice of capital punishment. This would require a level of enlightenment, or capacity for grace, well beyond the technocratic elites who are serving, and who will serve (Obama notwithstanding), on the Court.
Along with appendixes, tailbones, and male nipples, Amerikan manunkind seems determined to retain a lizard-brained tolerance of human sacrifice.
"it is only for argument's sake that I suggest that if we must have a death penalty, the appropriate standard of evidence should be raised from "reasonable doubt" to "moral certainty". And should not be applied conditionally, i.e. to secondary or indirect participation in capital crimes."
And as an argument it makes entire sense.
I do not reject the death penalty per se, there are some crimes that are so horrible, so grotesque, there is no other answer. But keepimg men on death row for 15 and 20 years is cruel and unusual punishment in and of itself.
Except there is another answer I would far, far prefer and that is rejection from society. Devils Island so to speak without guards.
Not to say there isn't a lapse in justice for poorer defendents, but remember the statistics. The proportiion of blacks committing crimes is disproportunate to their population and most of it is against other blacks. There should be more blacks there.
The problem comes in the proportion of blacks that are executed in proportion to Whites, Latinos and Asians. This is where the real problem is. And I'm not even sure its because of racism.
Nothing more to say here, TM, than that you just hung the appropriate label of "racist" squarely around your neck. Here, let me tighten the knot.
I'm betting, and I haven't seen a picture of the man, that he's black. And I bet that, even though the white justices on the US Supreme Court (don't mention Thomas. His skin may be brown, but, as George Carlin once said of someone else, he's openly white.) would never admit it, race is a big factor in which criminal cases make it that far. This country, more so than South Africa, has the biggest problems and hangups when it comes to the color of a person's skin.
Any one of the four major corporate candidates could bring enough corporate mainstream media attention to this case to arouse enough interest from the inattentive public to stop this legal murder.
They won't.
Barack Obama was for single payer before he came out against it.
It is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chamber in which they die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not so easily confined. . . . [T]he way in which we choose those who will die reveals the depth of moral commitment among the living.
-- Justice William Brennan dissenting in McCleskey v. Kemp
That's from the Southern Center for Human Rights website. http://www.schr.org/deathpenalty/index.html
I went there thinking they would have been involved in this case. When I lived in Georgia, they were a great outfit that fought fights like this. From their website and a google search, I don't see any mention of the Davis case though. That's not a negative. Just an assumption gone bad. But people should still check out the work the SCHR does and help them out if possible.
One story with the SCHR. Back on the day the Iraq war started, there was a large demonstration in downtown Atlanta. Several people got arrested of course, so I was participating in a vigil outside the Atlanta city jail. At one point, some police officers came out and start harrasing us. Someone had apparently called the SCHR, and they sent a lawyer over to the scene.
I can tell you that when you are being hassled by the police and threatened with arrest for doing nothing more illegal that being on the public sidewalk outside the jail, seeing a human rights lawyer coming down the sidewalk towards you is the greatest feeling in the world. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the SCHR ever since. :)
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
There is no longer even a pretense of civilty, due process or basic humanity. Political, civil and judicial discourse has degenerated into tribalism that feeds the basest instincts.
Good luck folks.
Having once been arrested, handcuffed and pushed to the ground at the side of a dark country road a few miles from where I owned a house, for simply getting out my car to ask a police officer a question--- I am a white woman--- I can only imagine what African Americans and Latino people must deal with on a daily basis. It seems okay to simply shoot first and think about how to spin the story later, as far as police in the NYC area are concerned.
At this point, I have serious doubts about the ethics of police, and there are major concerns about the legal system in this country with regards to racism.
Let's face it, elevated consciousness is not a prevalent characteristic, or even a very desired one, in the modern American psyche.
And, I fear, there will be ample evidence of that soon after November 4th, regardless of who wins.
Pure barbarism.