Buried Alive

When I think about innocent people on death row, I think about being buried alive. No way out. Death is on its way, and you don’t know how long you’ll last.

It’s a scary thought, but for too many individuals, that has been their life: sitting in prison and waiting for their time to come. And in the end, too many guiltless people have had their lives taken from them without a second thought.

Many victims, lawyers, and judges want a scapegoat for the loss of a loved one. And I don’t fault them for wanting someone to blame. I’d want something to blame if I was at a loss, too.

But humans are fallible. We make mistakes. We sometimes judge too soon; and, in stressful situations, we tend to make brash decisions.

In Troy A. Davis’s case, false pretenses lead to improper judgment. He supposedly murdered Officer MacPhail over fifteen years ago in Savannah, Georgia. But the prosecution’s case lacked solid evidence, even a murder weapon. The jury tossed aside reason in favor of coming to a quick decision in order to bring the victim’s family “closure.”

But will “closure” take another victim’s life? That’s the weakness of the death penalty, especially in cases like Troy’s in which juries use shady evidence to convict a man of murder. That’s unconscionable and disturbing. That’s not how a so-called civilized, democratic nation, such as the United States, should act (In fact, United States is one of the few countries that still allows capital punishment. Some others include Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran.).

Abolishing the death penalty in the United States appears to be a long ways away, though. For now, the main concern should be that Troy gets a new trial after next week’s hearing on November 13.

I expect that the Georgia Supreme Court look will look at this case with unbiased eyes and see the fractures in the evidence against him. I hope they realize that humans aren’t perfect, and that one man’s life is worth the time and effort of a fair trial.

Sara Reichert