Troy Davis Put to Death in Georgia | Photos | Videos | Commentaries

http://iheartar.com/2011/09/22/no-more-cages-an-abolitionist-approach/

.

No More Cages: An Abolitionist Approach
In Animal/Human Rights, Denial of Rights on September 22, 2011 at 5:20 pm

.

The state of Georgia executed Troy Davis last night.

Despite the substantial amount of doubt about Davis’ guilt — including 7 out of the 9 witnesses who recanted or backed away from their testimony (some saying they were coerced by police), three jurors who convicted Davis who later asked that his life be spared, and support for clemency from far-ranging people like former FBI director William Sessions, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Gregory, former President Jimmy Carter, and former U.S. Congressman and one-time presidential candidate Bob Barr (a Republican who supports the death penalty) — Georgia’s parole board decided he should die. And so last night at 11:08 Eastern Time, he was killed by lethal injection.

Troy’s case has brought international attention to deep, long-existing flaws in the U.S. criminal justice system. And unfortunately, there will be another Troy Davis in the future, and another, and so on, until we address the issue in a substantial and meaningful way.

Even as animal rights activists, we still have a responsibility to bear in resisting the oppression of human beings, being that humans are animals as well who share the same traits with non-human animals in their desire to live in freedom. As activists who work to get the inherent rights of animals recognized, we strive not to merely improve their welfare, but to abolish a system that confines and kills animals, and for the animal rights activists that identify themselves as “abolitionists,” the Troy Davis case is great entry point to a crucial critique of the prison industrial complex — we need to work on abolishing the prison system that cages and kills people, as well as abolishing the consumer-driven system that confines and kills animals. The punitive nature of the prison system is linked to poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, able-ism, and more — it is an expression of dominance and oppression, no different than the drive for dominance and oppression against animals for profit.

Since the invention of the prison as punishment in Western society during the late 1700s, criminal justice systems have so thoroughly depended on imprisonment that we have lost the ability to imagine other ways to solve the problem of “crime.” The current system is based on revenge and punitive measures that does nothing to address the wrongs committed and doesn’t rehabilitate the offender to a more positive member of society, caring little about the criminal’s need or the victims loss. We must rethink our basic assumption that punishment must be a necessary response to all violations of the law, or at the very least, have other paradigms of punishment.

Reconciliatory or restorative justice is an approach that has proved successful in non-Western societies — Native American societies, for example. The underlying idea is that in many cases, the reconciliation of offender and victim (including monetary compensation to the victim) is a much more progressive vision of justice than the social exile of the offender. There are other methods such as supervised release, probation, community work, and the use of community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies to control the problem of social crime. We cannot be free to imagine other ways of addressing crime as long as we see imprisonment as a way for dealing with violations of the law. The abolitionist response seeks to restore both the victim and the criminal to their full humanity, to allow them to live in dignity and integrity within the community. Abolitionists advocate the minimum amount of intervention and coercion in an individual’s life and the maximum amount of care and services to all people in the society.

The role of criminal law needs to be drastically reduced, as criminal sanctions are not an effective way of dealing with social problems. There are far too many laws on the books, which is prohibitively expensive to enforce, resulting in unjust and arbitrary law enforcement. Powerless persons are incarcerated while more powerful persons go free. People of color and those suffering from poverty bear the brunt of unequal and unfair law enforcement. The current system of corrections does nothing to address the underlying issues of what causes crime. There would be fewer criminals if society treated people with respect and equality, regardless of gender, color, ethnic background, sexual preference, education, etc. Those with mental pathologies can be rehabilitated, or with a more comprehensive system of mental health care, be detected, monitored and treated before before criminal acts are committed.

The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in prisons or jails. There are currently more than 2 million people in U.S. federal and state correctional facilities. According to a June 2006 U.S. prison study by the bipartisan Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, “Confronting Confinement,” 67% of former prisoners are rearrested and 52% are re-incarcerated within three years of their release, a recidivism rate that calls into question the effectiveness of America’s criminal justice and corrections system. Violence, overcrowding, poor medical and mental health care, and numerous other failings plague America’s 5,000 prisons and jails. Prisons are also used as a “default asylum” for many individuals with mental illness. About 30 to 40 % of mentally ill individuals incarcerated have had no criminal charges placed.

In addition to inequity and equality, death is an integral part of the criminal justice system. The death penalty here in the U.S. is a deadly tool of revenge–it does not act as a deterrent to crime, and it does nothing for the families and other loved ones of victims. Indeed, many families of victims who were murdered advocate against the death penalty. On the same day that Troy Davis was executed, Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas, despite Byrd’s family opposing the execution. Conditions in prisons and jails contribute to numerous suicides, as well as the death of people like Timothy Cole resulting from a lack of proper medical treatment. Include the many deaths while in police custody, such as the recent local case of John T. Williams being shoot to death by a police officer, and it’s evident the widespread systematic problem with the way we approach crime and establish guilt and innocence has fatal consequences.

So with the failings of the currrent criminal justice system, we must envision a different outlook entirely. It is simply not enough to work to improve the conditions of prisons, to work for more “humane” ways to kill offenders, and to regulate the way the prison system handles prisoners. We must work towards the abolishment of the current prison system and replace it with a community-based approach. More cages is not the answer. Bigger cages is not the answer. Abolitionists believe that it is only in a caring community that redemption can take place. The current culture of dominance is more in need of “correction” than the prisoner. The caring communities have yet to be built. If it takes the death of Troy Davis to galvanize a movement for change, then let his death not be in vain.

.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/09/17/georgia.rally.davis/?iref=obinsite

CNN...

Mother of slain cop says execution of Troy Davis will give her peace
From David Mattingly and John Murgatroyd, CNN
September 17, 2011 6:51 p.m. EDT

Atlanta (CNN) -- As crowds marched through Atlanta in support of a death row inmate, the slain Savannah police officer's mother said Saturday she remains convinced of Troy Davis' guilt.

"I will never have closure," said Anneliese MacPhail. "But I may have some peace when he is executed."

Her son, Mark MacPhail, was gunned down in a 1989 shooting that Davis was convicted for. The former Army Ranger left behind his wife and two then-young children.

The case has drawn international attention for what Davis' advocates say is a conviction based on flimsy evidence.

They include his sister Kimberly Davis, who told CNN on Saturday that she is "emotionally prepared" for an execution but does not think it is warranted.

"My brother, he is innocent," she said. "(MacPhail's family) won't have closure if an innocent man is executed."

Since his 1991 conviction, seven of the nine witnesses against him have recanted or contradicted their testimony. No physical evidence was presented linking Davis to the killing.

Yet the slain officer's mother insists she "never had any doubts."

"I think these people are just against the death penalty," she said, adding later that they "have no idea what's going on. ... They don't know what happened."

In a 2008 statement, then-Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton described how Davis was at a pool party in Savannah when he shot another man, Michael Cooper, in the face. Davis was then driven to a nearby convenience store, where he pistol-whipped a homeless man, Larry Young, who'd just bought a beer.

Soon thereafter, prosecutors said MacPhail -- who was working in uniform, off-duty, at a nearby bus station and restaurant -- arrived. It was then, the jury determined, that Davis shot the officer three times, including once in the face as he stood over him.

Davis' lawyers, in a petition to a U.S. District Court, insisted that there is "no physical evidence linking" Davis to MacPhail's murder. They point, too, to "the unremarkable conclusion" of a ballistic expert who testified that he could not find definitively that the bullets that wounded Cooper and killed MacPhail were the same.

Yet Georgia's attorney general, in an online statement, notes that the expert said the bullets came from the same gun type and noted that casings at the pool party shooting matched those -- and thus came from the same firearm -- as those found at MacPhail's murder scene.

After being presented this evidence, a jury in 1991 convicted Davis on two counts of aggravated assault and one each of possessing a firearm during a crime, obstructing a law enforcement officer and murder. The latter charge led, soon thereafter, to his death sentence.

Davis has been scheduled for execution three previous times, delays that the victim's mother said "boggles" her.

"I'm not out after blood, I'm after justice," Anneliese MacPhail said. "I want my son to rest in peace."

During an Atlanta rally and march on Friday, Davis' supporters -- insisting he was wrongly convicted in MacPhail's shooting -- said this time will be different.

They are hopeful that their appeals for clemency will be answered by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Hundreds of supporters marched through the downtown streets of the Georgia capital Friday chanting, "Free Troy Davis." Others carried signs that read, "Too Much Doubt."

However, unless something dramatic happens, Davis, 42, will die by lethal injection on Wednesday.

The Rev. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, who is set to testify before Davis' parole board Monday, says he "can only begin to imagine the pain (the family) must be feeling."

MacPhail "was protecting the community, and there is no pain greater than when a parent loses a child," Warnock said.

Still, he says, "there is too much doubt in this case for an execution."

"I have met with (Davis) on death row," Warnock added. "I believe he is innocent."

Hope is just about all Davis has right now. The pardons and paroles board denied him clemency once before. The board has never changed its mind in any case in the past 33 years.

On Thursday, supporters delivered to the pardons and paroles board a 663,000-name petition asking for clemency.

MacPhail's family has steadfastly asserted that Davis was the killer, as has the man who prosecuted him.

"I'm just disappointed so many people have been led to believe nobody has paid attention to these recantations. It is simply not the case," Lawton, the former district attorney, once told CNN affiliate WTOC.

"On what grounds are the recantations more believable than the testimony in court? None," he said.

Reviewing Davis' claims of innocence last year, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia found that Davis "vastly overstates the value of his evidence of innocence."

"Some of the evidence is not credible and would be disregarded by a reasonable juror," Judge William T. Moore wrote in a 172-page opinion. "Other evidence that Mr. Davis brought forward is too general to provide anything more than smoke and mirrors," the court found.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/09/22/troy.davis.reax/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2

.

CNN...

.

America divided on death penalty, Troy Davis
September 22, 2011 4:15 p.m. EDT

.

(CNN) -- What was a somber mood following convicted cop killer Troy Davis' execution Wednesday night turned to disgust and outrage by morning.

Casey Anthony was a trending topic Thursday because so many people had taken to Twitter to express their dismay over Anthony being deemed innocent in the death of her daughter while Davis is executed.

"Casey Anthony is offered a book deal, Troy Davis is only offered his last meal. Wake up America, our justice system is screwed," came a tweet from the handle JamesKlynn.

Another, from TRizzleComedy, read, "If the Troy Davis situation has taught us anything today, its that Casey Anthony should've been black."

A jury found Anthony not guilty of murder in July, whereas a jury and several judges on appeal have determined that Davis killed Savannah, Georgia, police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989. Spencer Lawton, Davis' prosecutor, has said the case withstood every legal challenge but couldn't win the battle of public opinion.

Race has been a major factor in people's perception of the case, with many claiming Davis was railroaded because he was black. It also has raised questions about the fairness of the death penalty and whether it is more often applied to African-Americans than whites.

While assertions that the U.S. executes more blacks than whites are incorrect -- the country has executed 263 more white people than black people since the death penalty's 1976 reinstatement -- inequalities exist when a murder is interracial.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 15 white defendants have been executed for the murder of black victims, but 246 African-Americans have been executed for killing whites.

It's just one of many factors that have Davis supporters and death penalty opponents -- often one and the same -- demanding that capital punishment be re-examined in this country.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI was among the most influential voices calling for clemency, said as much in his statement after Davis' lethal injection.

"If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated. We hope this tragedy will spur us as a nation toward the total rejection of capital punishment," Carter wrote.

Certainly, the death penalty is an issue for which American support has flagged and spiked in the decades since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted it, but Americans have largely supported it since the 1930s, according to Gallup.

The only exception, according to the polling agency, is 1966, when 47% of Americans said they opposed it, compared with 42% who backed it. Since the country began performing executions again, critics have been heavily outnumbered, with opposition never topping 32%, Gallup says.

Support jumped to 80% -- compared with 16% against -- in 1994, and a poll last year showed a 64-29 split, with 6% expressing no opinion, Gallup reported.

Some of those who favor executions as a criminal deterrent flocked to CNN to post their thoughts on Davis' death.

"Justice served," wrote dplandy, while SuperSlim32 wrote, "But he was a good guy when he wasn't pistol whipping people or shooting them in the face."

The latter is a reference to a jury also finding Davis guilty of two aggravated assault charges: that he shot a man outside a pool party in Savannah before striking a homeless man with his pistol. It was the pistol-whipping that prompted MacPhail to respond to the Burger King parking lot where he was killed.

Some CNN commenters defended the police work and prosecution that led to Davis' conviction and execution. One, fitat50, even said, "The reason some people care about him is because they are sheep."

Added DTiger901, "How about you just read the facts concerning the case...like that there were 34 witnesses against him..some of whom knew him before the cold blooded murder then identified him. Oh wait, you would never take the time to read the case you just want to jump on the 'he's innocent bandwagon.' "

But some death penalty supporters, like commenter marciavolk, said there was too much doubt to administer the ultimate punishment. The commenter further said that the death penalty is "administered arbitrarily" and that the "long-standing discrimination against minorities in the south (yeah it's still there)" played a role in the decision to execute Davis.

"We will never know if Troy Davis was or was not guilty of the crimes he was charged with and that alone should have prevented him from being executed," marciavolk wrote.

Another commenter, jangar, took issue with the evidence in the case, which has been in question since seven of nine witnesses recanted or changed their original testimony from the 1991 trial. As Amnesty International and others have pointed out, Davis' supporters also have problems with the lack of physical evidence and the investigation's failure to produce the .38-caliber pistol used in the slaying.

"As we have seen over the years eye-witness testimony a lot of times is unreliable," jangar wrote. "People say they saw something, convince themselves they really did see something, and then determine they could have been mistaken; but with physical evidence -- gun, body, video tape -- the evidence is there in front of you and can be tested for DNA."

The divergence of sentiments regarding Davis' death was apparent around the globe. While right-wing legal analyst and author Ann Coulter wrote a Thursday article headlined "Cop Killer is Media's Latest Baby Seal," the NAACP slammed the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles' refusal to intervene.

"There is too much doubt to proceed with an execution. No amount of deliberation will change the fact that the case against Mr. Davis has too many holes," President Ben Jealous wrote.

The European Union, the French Foreign Ministry and Germany's junior minister for human rights joined Jealous in denouncing the execution, with the EU saying that America must abolish capital punishment "to protect human dignity."

In the U.S., protests were not limited to Jackson, Georgia, where the state has been electrocuting or lethally injecting death row inmates since 1983.
As we have seen over the years eye-witness testimony a lot of times is unreliable.

In Washington, more than a dozen people were arrested outside the White House during a protest organized by Howard University.

Matt Tapie, 32, a CNN iReporter from Alexandria, Virginia, and doctorate candidate at Catholic University, said he joined the demonstrators there. He was busy writing his dissertation Wednesday but said he knew he had to participate. He said he was appalled by the final outcome.

"We can see how much further we have to go in a country where we have an African-American president ... but an African-American in Georgia can be executed," he said.

In Chicago, David Manning, 31, who had not been following the case, was taking photographs in the city when he ran across forlorn protesters in "I Am Troy Davis" T-shirts leaving a protest in Daley Plaza after the execution.

"What struck me was the looks on their faces as they walked away," the iReporter said. "They looked very frustrated and down."

.

PHOTO: Bob Kaylor of Jackson, Georgia, was part of a smaller contingent that protested Troy Davis' supporters outside the prison.

.

I don't know if everyone here has seen this, but another execution happened last night. It would be good to get some comments on this story.
http://current.com/community/93459187_white-supremacist-executed-for-1998-killin...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-wasnt-doubt-enough-to-save-troy-davis...

.

VIDEO: There are no do-overs for the death penalty

.

The Washington Post...

.

Why wasn’t doubt enough to save Troy Davis from execution?

By Kathleen Parker, Thursday, September 22, 10:11 AM

.

I stayed up late Wednesday night in the hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court would call off the execution of Troy Davis. Instead, at 11:08 p.m., he was pronounced dead.

One minute he was lifting his head from the death gurney, pleading his innocence in the killing of a Georgia police officer 22 years ago and beseeching God to bless the souls of his executioners. Then the drugs entered his veins, he blinked a few times, appeared to yawn, according to witnesses, and entered the sleep from which there is no waking.

Would that there were no next. I am no wimp when it comes to justice and spent the first few decades of my life backstroking in the Old Testament. An eye for an eye was fine by me. But I have matured and these days I wear glibness — and righteousness — like a hair shirt. Satisfaction can never come from the termination of a human life except to protect one’s own and those of one’s dependents. Thus, our barbaric practice of capital punishment, premeditated and coldblooded, is, since we’re in a biblical mood, an abomination. That we grant the state the power to end a citizen’s life is a harrowing-enough thought. That we do so even when we know with certainty that sometimes innocents are killed is beyond comprehension.

In Davis’s case, opinions clearly differed. Seven of the nine witnesses who identified him as the shooter have since recanted. Even so, a federal judge ruled last year that the recantation testimony cast “minimal doubt” on Davis’s conviction.

Minimal? Isn’t any level of doubt enough?

Apparently, even the Supreme Court didn’t think so. After delaying Davis’s execution for four hours Wednesday, the court allowed the execution to proceed.

Those recantations surely should create sufficient doubt, not to exonerate Davis but at least not to kill him — even if you support the death penalty, as many sane and lovely Americans do. That said, I’m not so sure a sane and lovely person would or should cheer the death penalty, as some audience members did recently upon Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s expression of pride in his administration of ultimate justice. More convicted individuals have died in Texas under Perry’s watch than in any other state.

Though death is nothing to celebrate, I understand the desire for justice. I’ve experienced the horror of murder up close. Three members of my extended family have died at the hands of others, and I wish the perpetrators a toasty eternity. But my killing them wouldn’t restore anyone’s life. It merely makes me a killer.

Nevertheless, I don’t judge those for whom the ultimate justice brings solace or that most prosaic of catharsis — closure. Everyone understands the reflex to destroy the destroyer. But I do judge us. This nation. This society. This culture. The urge for justice and its close relative, revenge, is human, which is by definition also to err.

For justice to have any meaning, it must also mean that no innocent person should ever be executed. Some argue that the relatively rare and unintentional death of an innocent, if not justifiable, is at least tolerable toward the greater end of punishing the guilty, which is most often the case. During years of covering criminal courts, I was mostly surprised that anyone ever is convicted, given the strict standards of proof.

Thanks to DNA testing, we know that scores have been on death row who should not have been. Extrapolating, we can safely conclude that some innocents have been wrongfully executed. These facts alone should be all we need to retire the guillotine, in the hopes that we might yet evolve to a higher level of humanity. Never mind the other factual arguments — that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent and that, given our appeals process, executing someone is more expensive than keeping him in prison for life.

When we join together to administer death, we become something other than a civilized community of men and women. No matter how we frame the arguments or justifications, we become executioners. Where there is doubt, as there seems to have been in Davis’s case, we become murderers.

No one is recommending that Davis should have been given a free pass. Life without parole is no picnic. But we might sleep easier had we not participated in killing a man without the moral certainty that he was guilty.

.

Kathleen Parker

Parker writes a weekly column on politics and culture.

.

.

http://www.truth-out.org/troy-davis-price-justice-was-too-high/1316699504

.

Truthout...

.

Troy Davis: The Price of "Justice" Was Too High

Thursday 22 September 2011

by: Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout | Op-Ed

.

When protecting the systems in a society becomes more important than the people the systems are designed to protect, that society is in great peril.

Troy Davis languished on Georgia's Death Row for four additional hours until the stay of execution he hoped and prayed for was denied by the US Supreme Court. At 11:08 PM (EST) Davis was executed for the murder of Officer Mark MacPhail, even though recent evidence indicated that he might not have committed the murder. Members of the Georgia Supreme Court, a Butts County Superior Court judge, the Georgia Pardons Board, prosecutors, and others were more concerned with conviction rates and reputations than justice. They wanted "justice" at any cost, but many in this country and around the world demonstrated because the price that was paid was too high.

The execution of Davis when so much exculpatory evidence has come to light will only provide a short period of satisfaction for the justice seekers. At some point in time, the reality that another innocent life has been taken (the first being Officer MacPhail) coupled with the reality that the actual murderer is alive, well and walking the streets of Butts County, Georgia, will begin to weigh heavy on all of their hearts.

The question is very simple: once a person has been convicted and sentenced to death, if evidence is presented that destroys the prosecution's case, should that individual be executed? No! Look at it this way, since seven of the nine prosecutions witnesses have recanted their eyewitness testimony, the prosecution would not be able to get the conviction if the case were retried today. If the prosecution could not win this case today; why did Davis lose his life?

This calls into question the validity of "eye-witness" testimony, police investigatory practices, and many of the assumptions that Americans have used to base their faith in the judicial process. The ugly reality that this case forces many Americans to grapple with is, if the Davis case has fallen apart, how many other cases are called into question and how many innocent people have been executed?

This should be a clarion call to all those citizens of conscience in Georgia. All of those elected officials who touched this case and elected to weigh in on the wrong side of history should be defeated in their next elections. Nationally, this should beg the questions, what type of nation are we? For what do we really stand? Do we execute human beings just because we can, even when more than reasonable doubt has now been presented? Carrying out a questionable and tainted death sentence actually damages the "system" that these officials claim to hold so near and dear.

In the last Republican presidential debate, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said he sleeps well every night even though he has signed the death warrants of 234 death row inmates. He stated, "I've never struggled with that at all ... The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which - when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that's required." The problem with Perry's sense of security is that, since 1994, 44 innocent people have been exonerated and released from Texas prisons based upon DNA evidence that was not available or admitted at trial. Those who have been executed don't get a retrial, do over or exoneration.

This is class warfare. In America, the poor and the ignorant go to jail, while as the late Gil Scott-Heron said, "the rich go to San Clemente."

.

.

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

Dr. Leon is the host/producer of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program "On With Leon" on XM/Sirius satellite radio channel 169 "The Power." He is a regular guest on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and a contributing columnist to Truthout.org, PoliticsInColor.com and Black Star News.com

I don't know if everyone here has seen this, but another execution happened last night. It would be good to get some comments on this story.
http://current.com/community/93459187_white-supremacist-executed-for-1998-killin...

http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates

The Atlantic...

.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Personal Sep 22 2011, 1:00 PM ET 357
It's yours...
The Night They Killed Troy Davis

National Sep 22 2011, 12:00 PM ET 143
Rutgers historian William Jelani Cobb was outside of the prison, last night, where Troy Davis was held and executed. He filed this report while bearing "witness to a great evil." Jelani has guest-posted here before. We're always happy to have him back offering his unique mix of politics, history and on-site reporting.

PHOTO:
110921-protesters-hmed-1p.grid-7x2.jpg
(Erik S. Lesser / AFP-Getty Images / September 21, 2011)

.

JACKSON, Georgia -- The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison sits a quarter mile off Interstate 75 in Jackson, just outside the commuter suburbs of Atlanta. The technical name for the place obscures its most notorious function: it houses the death chamber for the state's executions. Last night, for more than seven hours, hundreds of people prayed, chanted, sang, hoped and shouted in front of that building in a vain effort to prevent the state of Georgia from extinguishing the life of Troy Davis.

A trickle of people began showing up outside the prison in the late afternoon. By 5 p.m. they had grown to about 200 and been cordoned off by police tape in front of a truck stop across from the prison. A knot of organizers from Amnesty International unfurled a huge banner saying "Free Troy Davis" and another set of activists held a sign saying we had returned to the days of the Scottsboro Nine. A principal came out with several of his elementary school students and a busload of students poured in from Spelman and Morehouse Colleges. But the largest group was from Al Sharpton's National Action Network -- at least thirty of whom had driven up from Savannah, where the murder of Mark McPhail took place. They set about coordinating the chants, moving people with signs to the forefront so that passersby could see exactly what we were protesting and generally keeping the protests going.

Initially the police outside the prison were unfazed by our presence, relaxed enough to be polite. But that changed as we drew closer to the scheduled hour of the execution. At about 6 p.m., local law enforcement, sheriffs, SWAT teams and state troopers began putting on riot gear. Over the course of the next hour they moved closer and closer to the protesters with their batons in hand. For their part they may have hoped that their show of force would prevent things from getting out of control but the reality is that it appeared that they wanted to instigate violence. It was impossible not to realize that from their perspective, we were praying for a man who had gunned down their fellow officer.

By 6:30 the crowd numbered at least 500 people. We spilled past the tape and onto the grassy barrier between the truck stop and Prison Boulevard where the facility is located. Trucks pulled in and out of the station began honking their horn in support of Troy Davis's cause.

But what was most surprising and disturbing is that the group was more than 90% black. For all the discussion about the implications of the death penalty for the country at large this broke down, as always, to an issue of race and black people would have to do the heavy lifting if any change were going to occur. The racial balance skewed so heavily that when a young white couple sat down on the grass next to me I asked them what organization they were with. The woman reply hit me hard: "We're not with an organization. I know Troy Davis -- my brother is on death row with him."

By 7 p.m. people nearly everyone there was crying or praying or both, imploring God to save Troy Davis's soul if he would not save his life. In the midst of this I realized that there were no counter-protests. Later I learned there were a few. But still I saw no crowds gathered to voice their support for what was happening inside that prison. This was a small grace but it was also possibly because few believed that Davis' fate was ever in doubt. And they had no reason to.

Georgia's criminal justice system is a microcosm for the kind of racial disparities that plague the entire country. Blacks are 30.5% of the state's population but make up 61% of Georgia's prisoners. A few years back the state legislature, in the name of getting tough on crime, passed a bill that created draconian penalties and allowed juveniles to be charged as adults for a wide array of crimes, including simple robbery, which would normally be handled by a juvenile court. The legislation was so poorly written that in the state if a 14 year old and a 35 year old rob a liquor store together, the teenager can - and in some instances has -- received a sentence longer than that of the adult. It can go without saying that these laws have disproportionately impacted black youth.

Both the state legislature and the governorship are firmly in the hands of the GOP and, though the newly elected Nathan Deal remains the subject of a federal corruption probe, no Democrat has stood a chance of becoming governor since Roy Barnes was turned out of office for opposing the Confederate flag nearly a decade ago. This is Georgia in the 21st century, the state that claimed, despite recantations, police coercion, contrary evidence and the lack of physical evidence, that it was certain beyond a reasonable doubt that Troy Davis was responsible for the death of Mark McPhail and that he should die for it.

The sobs of the mourning crowd were punctured by shouts when we heard that the Supreme Court had stepped in to review the case. The reality is that this crowd, predominantly African American, many battle-wearied activists, still believed that this execution simply could not happen. For hours, their energy and commitment unflagging, people beat drums, held candles and sang civil rights songs. And here lies the paradox: even as people most intimately aware of the failings of this country, so many of us subscribed to a faith that justice would prevail that when we received word of the court's refusal to grant a stay the reaction was stunned disbelief.

The feeling, as I stood in front of the truck stop in the middle of the night, was that we were witness to a great evil -- not solely the taking of what may well have been an innocent life, but also in the false certainty that sought to sell this killing as justice. When word came at 11:08 p.m. that Troy Davis was no more, women began wailing; several of them fell to the ground heaving inconsolably. A few men offered stumbling, meandering prayers that some good might come of this, that it would inspire some greater reckoning with the arbitrary, corrupted realities of capital punishment in this country.

And I, at that point, thought about my father, a native of Hazlehurst, Georgia who had abandoned his home state for New York in 1941. He lived the remainder of his life there, firm in his belief that a black man's life was seen as worthless in Georgia. I grew up hearing the stories of the sadistic violence that was commonplace there, about a black women he'd known growing up who was raped and tortured by white men who went unpunished. I moved to Georgia in 2001, secure in my belief that the place had changed, that our efforts had yielded success and the stories my father told me were now consigned to the horror closets of history.

But last night, progress, hopes and a black presidency be damned, the state of Georgia had the last word. And they were determined to prove the old man right.

.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/troy-davis-execution-repeal-de...

.

Los Angeles Times...

.

Could Troy Davis execution lead to repeal of the death penalty?

September 22, 2011 | 12:41 pm

.

Troy Davis’ execution is renewing a campaign to overturn the death penalty in the United States. Former President Jimmy Carter is at the forefront of those calling for such a repeal, blasting the death penalty as "unjust and outdated."

"Rosalynn and I are deeply saddened by the execution of Troy Anthony Davis by the state of Georgia. If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated. We hope this tragedy will spur us as a nation toward the total rejection of capital punishment."

Amnesty International was using the hashtag #TroyDavisLives on Twitter to encourage people to sign an online petition to abolish the death penalty. "Let this be the beginning of the end of the #deathpenalty," wrote one person circulating the petition on behalf of the human rights organization.

Davis was executed late Wednesday night for the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah, Ga., police officer. Until the very end, he insisted that he was not responsible for killing Mark MacPhail. "I am innocent," he said, just moments before the lethal injection was administered and he was pronounced dead.

His execution followed an extraordinary fight to keep him alive after several key witnesses in the case recanted their testimony. High-placed support came from a variety or corners, including the former president as well as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI, former FBI Director William Sessions and former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.).

Richard Dieter, executive of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Davis' case could signal a watershed moment in the fight to overturn the death penalty because even many proponents of the death penalty had questions about whether Davis was guilty. It all raised the troubling prospect that an innocent man might have been put to death -- and underscored the irreversible nature of the punishment.

Currently, 34 states allow the death penalty, as do the military and the federal government.

While Dieter's Washington-based research center does not take a position on the death penalty, he predicted that this ultimate punishment will one day be banned in the United States. "Not tomorrow," he told The Times. "But as long as you have such nagging problems about guilt and innocence continue, I think the death penalty is facing demise."

And if it does, he said, Davis' execution will have no doubt played a role.

Dieter said he couldn't recall the last time a death penalty case triggered such widespread demonstrations, including protests held outside the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court and the prison, as well as throughout Georgia and in a smattering of other places across the country.

"This was an on-the-street sort of thing," Dieter said. "It was surprising. this really did blossom into something else. Even if you support the death penalty, you are not in favor of executing the innocent. This was both a case and a time that came together."

.

.

Savannah Morning News, via Associated Press

Troy Anthony Davis entering Chatham County Superior Court in Georgia on Aug. 22, 1991, during his trial in the shooting death of an off-duty police officer, Mark MacPhail.

.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/us/in-debate-davis-execution-offers-little-clo...

The New York Times...

.

In Debate, Davis Execution Offers Little Closure

.

Photo: Tami Chappell/Reuters

Crowds protested outside of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification prison yesterday before the execution of Troy Davis.

.

September 22, 2011
In Debate, Davis Execution Offers Little Closure

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

.

PART ONE...

.

After decades of litigation, the final legal ruling allowing the execution of Troy Davis was a one-sentence order from the United States Supreme Court so terse that it could have fit neatly into a Twitter message with room to spare.

But it is hardly the last word on the case, or in the national debate over the death penalty.

The finality of Mr. Davis’s sentence, and the outpouring of protest worldwide, leaves in its wake more than its share of questions. Because the Savannah police officer he was convicted of killing in 1989, Mark MacPhail, was white and Mr. Davis was black, the progress of Mr. Davis’s case over two decades widened fault lines on the death penalty and, in particular, over the question of whether a black person in the South could be guaranteed the same justice as a white one.

The nature of those doubts and the arguments for Mr. Davis’s innocence — which one judge dismissed as “smoke and mirrors” — could be, and will be, debated endlessly. And while no judge who reviewed the minimal physical evidence and the testimony and witness recantations in the case ever ruled to overturn Mr. Davis’s conviction for the 1989 shooting, the activist community portrayed him as a symbol of the fallibility of eyewitness identification, of the intransigence of the justice system and of its unwillingness to correct errors — and even as a failure of the nation itself.

“The execution of an innocent man crystallizes in the most sickening way the vast systemic injustices that plague our death penalty system,” Denny LeBoeuf , director of the Capital Punishment Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “No innocent person should ever be put to death, and it is unconscionable and unconstitutional to carry out an execution where, as in the case of Troy Davis, significant doubts exist.”

Amnesty International, which mobilized much of the opposition to the Davis execution, pledged to redouble its efforts against the death penalty in the United States, and the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People voted this week to raise the death penalty to the forefront of its list of priorities in future advocacy.

But can the debate over the death penalty even be called a national conversation, or is it simply two factions shouting past each other? Does it change hearts and minds, or harden advocates in their positions? Brawls, after all, do not persuade, and those favoring the execution sounded every bit as certain of Mr. Davis’s guilt as were his supporters of his innocence.

His execution underscores the uncomfortable relationship Americans have with the death penalty. A Gallup poll last October showed that 64 percent of those surveyed supported it for those convicted of murder, a level that had been relatively consistent for the previous seven years. Support had been higher — 80 percent in 1994 — but it has slipped, in part because of the drumbeat of hundreds of convictions overturned because of DNA evidence.

.

CONTINUED...

.

.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/us-executes-death-row-prisoner-troy-d...

Amnesty International...

.

US executes death row prisoner Troy Davis
The case against Troy Davis primarily rested on witness testimony.

21 September 2011

Amnesty International has condemned the decision by authorities in the state of Georgia to execute death row prisoner Troy Davis.

Troy Davis, 42, who had been on death row since 1991, was executed by lethal injection at the Georgia state prison in Jackson on Wednesday, despite serious doubts surrounding his conviction.

On the same day, Iran publicly hanged a 17-year old boy convicted of killing a popular athlete despite international prohibitions against executing juveniles, while China executed a Pakistani national convicted of drug smuggling even though drug offences do not meet the threshold for “most serious” crimes in international law.

“This is a bleak day for human rights worldwide. By executing these individuals, these countries are moving away from the global trend to abolish the death penalty,” said Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Americas.

“Countries that retain the death penalty very often defend their position by claiming that their use of the death penalty is consistent with international human rights law. Their actions yesterday blatantly contradict these claims,” she said.

Amnesty International activists have campaigned extensively against the death penalty. In recent days, nearly one million signatures on Troy Davis’ behalf have been delivered to authorities in Georgia to urge them to commute his death sentence: vigils and events have been held in approximately 300 locations around the world.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen Macphail in Savannah, Georgia. The case against him primarily rested on witness testimony.

Since his 1991 trial, seven of key nine witnesses recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion.

Iranian teenager Alireza Molla-Soltani was hanged Wednesday morning in front of a large crowd in the city of Karaj.

He was sentenced to death last month for stabbing Ruhollah Dadashi, a popular athlete during a driving dispute on 17 July. The 17-year old said he panicked and stabbed Ruhollah Dadashi in self-defence after the athlete attacked him in the dark, according to local media reports.

Zahid Husain Shah, who was arrested in 2008 for drug smuggling, was executed in China by lethal injection on Wednesday.

On the same day, Lawrence Brewer was also executed in Huntsville, Texas. He was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of James Byrd, Jr. in June 1998.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, without exception.

“The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it,” said Guadalupe Marengo.

“Hopefully the harrowing executions that have been carried out today will spur Amnesty International members, and other activists on to continue the fight against the death penalty,” she added.

In addition to the USA, China and Iran, the Amnesty International’s campaign to abolish the death penalty is focusing on Belarus.

Amnesty International is working with the NGO Human Rights Centre Viasna, in Belarus, calling on President Lukashenka to immediately suspend executions and commute the sentences of all those on death row.

As many as 400 people may have been executed in Belarus since the country gained independence in 1991.

After a year without executions, the Belarusian authorities executed two men in 2010 and sentenced three people to death and two other men were believed to have been executed between 14 and 19 July 2011, although there has been no official confirmation of the deaths.

Belarus is the last country in Europe and the former Soviet Union that still carries out executions.

“It is time the USA, China, Iran and Belarus recognise how isolated they are in the world,” said Guadalupe Marengo.

.

http://www.theroot.com/buzz/troy-davis-supreme-court-considers-stay

.

The Root...

.

Troy Davis: Executed by Georgia

By: Jenée Desmond-Harris | Posted: September 21, 2011

.

Updated 11:13 p.m.: MSNBC aired the announcement that the time of death was 11:08 p.m. According to a media witness, he went to his death insisting that he was innocent. He also told the MacPhail family that he was sorry for their loss, and asked his supporters to continue to look into the case. His last words were to the prison staff: "May God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls." Rest in peace, Troy Davis.

Updated 11:02 p.m.: According to NBC News, the execution is under way.

Updated 10:41 p.m., ET: According to news reports, Troy Davis has no further legal recourse and is expected to be executed tonight. Tweeting from the scene at Jackson Prison, Spelman professor William Jelani Cobb says heartbroken protesters responded to news that his stay of execution was denied with chants and by reciting the 23rd Psalm. See the video he posted.

Updated 10:27 p.m., ET: NBC News is reporting that Troy Davis' bid to have his execution stayed has been denied by the Supreme Court. The execution could take please shortly. More details are to come.

.

_________________________________

.

Earlier:

Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. tonight. That execution has now been delayed as the Supreme Court weighs arguments by Davis' legal team and the state of Georgia over whether he deserves a stay, ABC News reports:

At 7:05 p.m. tonight, five minutes after his scheduled death, Davis' supporters erupted in cheers, hugs and tears outside the jail in Jackson, Ga., as supporters believed Davis had been saved from the death penalty. But the Supreme Court only granted a temporary reprieve as it considers the decision.

The Supreme Court could decide at any time tonight or in the next seven days whether to go through with his execution, according to local TV station 11Alive.

Davis has spent 22 years on death row, and in recent years, support for his plea of innocence has increased as several witnesses recanted their testimony that he fired the shot that killed Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. His supporters, who include politicians, activists and social media users worldwide, have called for the execution to be delayed because of "too much doubt" present in his case.

.

http://www.theroot.com/views/when-death-penalty-hits-home

.

The Root...

.

When the Death Penalty Hits Home

As the Troy Davis case takes over the news, one writer can't help thinking of her cousin on death row.

By: Helena Andrews | Posted: September 21, 2011 at 3:48 PM

When the Death Penalty Hits Home

.

I remember Tony first as one of the big kids with a Jheri curl. On holidays, when everyone under the age of 18 holed up in the den and "gimme the controller" mayhem ensued, he was the chubby, quiet one. The one who smiled a lot.

I remember Tony second as a superhero. He'd gone away somewhere (my mother said a summer camp) and had come back with muscles the size of my head. He'd grown up and grown even more inward. When I told my cousin Donna, another one of the big kids, that it must have been a fat camp Tony went to, she laughed.

"No, Lena. It wasn't like a camp camp." He'd been in a juvenile-rehabilitation camp.

From there, my memories of Tony are sparse. His image is recognizable in the first few pages of family albums. Keep flipping though and it disappears. Favoring the temporarily fulfilling life of the streets to life in our family album, Tony has been in and out of prison his entire adult life.

In 1995 he was sentenced to death for a murder committed in Los Angeles in 1991, the same year Troy Davis -- whose name has become a rallying cry for death-penalty foes -- was convicted of murdering off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Georgia.

Just as I had to do to discover the impossible twists and turns of Davis' case, I had to Google the details of Tony's conviction and sentencing -- they aren't considered acceptable topics at college graduations, weddings and baby showers. I do know that he has never claimed to be innocent of participating in what he described in a letter as "dastardly, thug, criminal and sin-filled" gang activity. Whether he committed the crime he was convicted of, I do not know.

In California, 13 prisoners have been executed since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. A prisoner sentenced to death, of which there are currently more than 700, may choose between gas or lethal injection. The state's governor has the sole authority to grant clemency.

Don Heller, the author of the 1978 initiative that formally and at the state level reinstated California's death penalty after years of back-and-forth on the issue, is now an advocate for life without parole.

"It makes no sense to prop up such a failed system," wrote the former prosecutor recently. "I am convinced that at least one innocent person may have been executed under the current death penalty law. It was not my intent nor do I believe that of the voters who overwhelmingly enacted the death penalty law in 1978. We did not consider that horrific possibility."

Troy Davis' (imminent) death seems to be reversing a lot of decisions, except for the one that sealed his fate so long ago. Several witnesses have come forward to say that they were coerced into naming Davis as the shooter. According to Amnesty International, "The case against [Davis] consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial."

E.D. Kain wrote in Forbes: "In the end, I am not concerned so much with whether or not Davis is guilty or innocent. I am concerned with the uncertainty of his guilt ... If we have even a glimmer of doubt about his guilt, there will be no justice in his death."

Mark MacPhail's family say they're not out for blood, only justice. I simply don't believe in that type of justice. Justice covered in blood is just as wrong as the crime for which it seeks punishment. Those who disagree with me will no doubt shout, "But what about the victim?!" I say that capital punishment creates victims of us all. An eye for an eye just makes everybody blind.

In the last 20 years, I've gotten maybe five letters from Tony, always written in sharp, daggerlike scrawl across each page in impossibly neat diagonal lines. I've written back maybe once or twice. Most years it's easy to forget that my cousin, someone I used to know, is on death row. That during the entirety of my adult life, Tony's been waiting to die. I'm out here living, as is the rest of the free world.

In a letter recently released online, Davis, a man many now believe is innocent, spoke for himself and called for a global dismantling of the death penalty. "I can't wait to stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing, 'I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!' "

.

.

Helena Andrews is a regular contributor to The Root and author of Bitch Is the New Black, a memoir in essays. Follow her on Twitter.

.

From Michael Moore's web site. "Shun Georgia" I will have no trouble boycotting that state!

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Justice.

In America?

Yeah, right.

Can this government be trusted to find solutions to the problems of creating jobs for those who need them the most?

If there was such a thing, would there be ghettos in city after city with the unemployment rate pushing 47% for young Black men willing and able to work?

If there was such a thing, would there be reservations throughout the U.S., with unemployment rates at 56% for all those willing and able to work?

If there was such a thing, would the prisons be disproportionately filled with the vast majority of Black and Indigenous Americans?

If there was such a thing, would there be so many that make up these two groups with no hope for a future?

No, fellow Americans, there is no such thing as fairness, equality or justice for these young men but a bleak future that is getting darker with the passage of time that is speeding up exponentially. The tipping point is fast approaching.

The wealthy and their supporters, The Republican Party and to a certain degree Democrats, had better wake up before time runs out for these young men and women or there will be Hell to pay.

This is not a threat. This is a warning.

A hungry human being that has nowhere to turn as he or she seeks employment to earn enough to feed their family and finds none, when they have no tomorrows left, when their options all have been depleted, their hopes are gone...THEN you will see a revolution of the jobless, the poor, the hungry, the homeless...the hopeless.

Ask Leonard Peltier if there's justice in America. Ask Troy Davis if there's justice in Amer....oh, wait, we can't ask him now, can we?

May God have mercy on the selfish and uncaring souls of this Nation.