The story of Troy Davis is more than a death penalty case or a death row inmate who has been waiting for justice to be served for 16 years. It’s about a man’s faith in God and in himself and his belief that no matter how hard life is, we should keep our faith, believe that we will find the justice and the peace at the end and we should keep fighting and stand up for ourselves.
Death Penalty is a serious issue and in my opinion, it’s against human rights. More importantly, executing someone for a crime he may not have committed is no different than a brutal murder. I hope our country’s legal system takes all the inconsistencies and holes in this case into consideration and gives Troy the fair trial and freedom he deserves.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Validation
We’ve been focusing on the case of Troy Davis all semester. And as the date to be heard in front of the U.S. Supreme Court draws near, I find that I’m getting nervous. The weeks of writing and emails, the celebration of “Troy Davis Day” on campus, the phone calls and emails – surely they haven’t all been in vain. I can only begin to imagine the angst that Troy is feeling in Georgia.
My stance on this case was first based solely on logic. After reviewing the case details provided by our professor and those available on Amnesty International’s website, I couldn’t help but think the evidence was overwhelmingly in Troy’s favor. But the letters and updates that our class has received from Troy and his family have strengthened my stance, extending it from logical to emotional.
I know that not everything in life works out as it should. I also know that we're working for a good cause. I find the evidence and reasoning made the details easier to work with, but it doesn’t lessen the meaning. The hard work that we’ve done has been educational, purposeful and may affect other people’s lives. That’s more than many can say about their own endeavors. It’s work that we’ll continue to do because it’s the right course of action. I have faith that the outcome will be just and fair, and in times of doubt, I remind myself that faith makes things possible, not easy.
Maggie
I think the Troy Davis case is not just about the death penalty. It is about our judicial system. We have a system that at times can be blind - unjust and unfair - focusing solely on the color of a man's skin.
I am not stating that the justic system in Americfa is completely flawed. What i feel is that there are few states that are more concerned about pusnishment than righteousness. The big problem is that citizens in these states accept injustice and intolerance as the norm. Why can't people recognize what is wrong and right and do something about it?
Peter
I am not stating that the justic system in Americfa is completely flawed. What i feel is that there are few states that are more concerned about pusnishment than righteousness. The big problem is that citizens in these states accept injustice and intolerance as the norm. Why can't people recognize what is wrong and right and do something about it?
Peter
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
Our Endangered Judicial Values: The Case of Troy Anthony Davis
Much has been said about America’s “moral crisis” and our “endangered values.” Former President of the United States and Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, devoted a whole book to the issue. As an American citizen and student of our democratic system, it is very disappointing to recognize that nowhere is this crisis in values more evident than in our justice system today.
A great example of our judicial system’s crisis in values is the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a black man who has spent the last 16 years on death row in the state of Georgia and was nearly executed this past July without any physical evidence to prove his guilt. Accused of killing a white policeman in 1989, Davis has spent the last 16 years on death row in the state of Georgia without any physical evidence to prove his guilt. Davis is the victim of a dysfunctional justice system that at times only provides incompetent public defense, can be racially biased, and often gives more weight to procedural technicalities than ethical maxims such as “beyond reasonable doubt.” This is evident by the more than 120 men and women whose death sentences have been exonerated since 1973, of which five have been in the state of Georgia, as documented by the Death Penalty Information Center. Robert Warden, Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, has established that these exonerations represent an error rate in our capital punishment system of more than one in ten.
The mistakes that Georgia’s justice system has made in Troy Davis’s case are so elemental and contrary to the fundamental rights established at the core of our Constitution that all responsible parties deserve to be examined in detail and judged by the American people. Otherwise, we condemn ourselves to fall in its hands and see injustice brought down upon us, or our loved ones. To deprive a young man of his right to a fair trial and, because of the system’s incompetence, force him to waste his youth in a cell as he awaits his death for a crime that he may very well be innocent of is not only unacceptable, but also a waste of the people’s money. It is suggestive of how little appreciation Georgia’s courts have for “life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness” and ethical maxims such as “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
On November 13, 2007 the Georgia Supreme Court will hear oral arguments requesting a new trial for Mr. Davis. The Supreme Court will not decide his guilt or innocence but only whether there is sufficient new evidence to merit a new trial. This is the same court that denied his appeal earlier this year on technical grounds and as a result of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
Wrongful convictions are a serious threat to our personal freedom and well-being, just as serious as crime and terrorism are. As Davis’s case shows, a wrongful conviction can happen to anyone, regardless of his or her innocence, just because he or she happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and “fit” a physical description that matches our system’s bias.
If we want to reclaim America’s values, let’s start with our judicial system. Let’s hold our juries accountable and have judges, at every level, demand greater accuracy in every step of the judicial process. It’s the ethical thing to do. Let’s uphold the right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence and beyond a reasonable doubt as our legal north. Let’s remind ourselves that the real fight for freedom begins at home, not abroad, when we strive to achieve “justice for all” in America.
Paola Pascual-Ferrá
A great example of our judicial system’s crisis in values is the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a black man who has spent the last 16 years on death row in the state of Georgia and was nearly executed this past July without any physical evidence to prove his guilt. Accused of killing a white policeman in 1989, Davis has spent the last 16 years on death row in the state of Georgia without any physical evidence to prove his guilt. Davis is the victim of a dysfunctional justice system that at times only provides incompetent public defense, can be racially biased, and often gives more weight to procedural technicalities than ethical maxims such as “beyond reasonable doubt.” This is evident by the more than 120 men and women whose death sentences have been exonerated since 1973, of which five have been in the state of Georgia, as documented by the Death Penalty Information Center. Robert Warden, Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, has established that these exonerations represent an error rate in our capital punishment system of more than one in ten.
The mistakes that Georgia’s justice system has made in Troy Davis’s case are so elemental and contrary to the fundamental rights established at the core of our Constitution that all responsible parties deserve to be examined in detail and judged by the American people. Otherwise, we condemn ourselves to fall in its hands and see injustice brought down upon us, or our loved ones. To deprive a young man of his right to a fair trial and, because of the system’s incompetence, force him to waste his youth in a cell as he awaits his death for a crime that he may very well be innocent of is not only unacceptable, but also a waste of the people’s money. It is suggestive of how little appreciation Georgia’s courts have for “life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness” and ethical maxims such as “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
On November 13, 2007 the Georgia Supreme Court will hear oral arguments requesting a new trial for Mr. Davis. The Supreme Court will not decide his guilt or innocence but only whether there is sufficient new evidence to merit a new trial. This is the same court that denied his appeal earlier this year on technical grounds and as a result of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
Wrongful convictions are a serious threat to our personal freedom and well-being, just as serious as crime and terrorism are. As Davis’s case shows, a wrongful conviction can happen to anyone, regardless of his or her innocence, just because he or she happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and “fit” a physical description that matches our system’s bias.
If we want to reclaim America’s values, let’s start with our judicial system. Let’s hold our juries accountable and have judges, at every level, demand greater accuracy in every step of the judicial process. It’s the ethical thing to do. Let’s uphold the right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence and beyond a reasonable doubt as our legal north. Let’s remind ourselves that the real fight for freedom begins at home, not abroad, when we strive to achieve “justice for all” in America.
Paola Pascual-Ferrá
Death Penalty Debate
When thinking of the death penalty, my mind often wonders the ever-famous line, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In this one sentence, our Declaration of Independence reveals the most treasured of American values and morals. It astounds me that these unalienable rights can be swept under the rug, when in the dead of night, prison officials gather and deny another human being the first of these rights.
Why has no one acknowledged this hypocrisy in the difference between our revered, historical document, and the lives that are taken by the state? According to the Declaration, life is endowed by the Creator, and it is a truth which is self-evident.
There are times when liberty and the pursuit have to be taken in order to preserve the rights of others. But life does not have to be taken to protect the rest of us. I have enough faith in the prison system of America. Statistically, there is no way to remove the margin of error in convictions and death penalty cases. Therefore, we can kill no one.
This margin of error brings me to the case of Troy Anthony Davis. This is a man that claims innocence. There is proof to support this claim. He could be the face of the margin of error in the death penalty system in America. He is a living, breathing reason to abolish the death penalty once and for all.
Gail
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