The Comment Factory

On a Tuesday, 47 days from today, Americans will use their right to vote to choose the next President. Americans will assess the policies of each candidate and examine what issues they see as paramount to their lives. The effect that their vote has on their future and the future of their children will be what drives them to the voting booths on November 4th.

On a Tuesday, 5 days from today, Troy Davis’ mind will probably not be on the election or anything really concerned with the future. August 23rd marks the date that has been set for his execution by the state of Georgia.

On the night of August 19 1989 Michael Cooper was shot at a party in Chatham County, Georgia. In the early morning of August 20 Larry Young was assaulted with a gun and Officer Mark Allen MacPhail was shot dead next to the Greyhound bus station next to Oglethorpe Avenue. A few days later Troy Davis surrendered himself to the police and was arrested. On August 28 1991 Davis was convicted for the murder of Officer MacPhail and for the assaults on Cooper and Young.

There was never any physical evidence linking Davis to the crimes he was convicted of.

Since Davis’s conviction, several affidavits of key witnesses have been recanted. Furthermore, evidence given by Young has also been brought into question in the light of information that the court did not hear first time around.

The claim of at least one key witness that she did not even read statements prepared for her by the police as testimony has given further force to the voice of those urging for a fair retrial.

The emergence of compelling evidence linking a different suspect to the crimes further demands the need to look at the facts and testimonies once again.

Despite going to and fro on the case for many years the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles has not given Davis a retrial. On 12 September, only a week ago, Davis was denied clemency and his execution seemed all the more real. A few days after this decision, Jack Alderman, the longest serving prisoner on death row in the USA, was given the lethal injection, and after 14 minutes since its insertion became the 993rd person to be executed in Georgia.

Despite the dogged stubbornness of the State Board to deny Davis a fair trial, there has been pressure from all corners for a retrial to take place. The feel that justice has not been done has found resonance with many.

The European Union in a letter to the State Board on 11 September wrote: “Any miscarriage or failure of justice in the application of the death penalty represents an irreparable and irreversible loss of human life”. Davis’ conviction is based on evidence that has been shown to be suspect at best. Unless he is convicted by a fair retrial he will continue to be innocent in the minds of many. If he is executed on 23 September, then the State Board must face up to the possibility that an innocent man could have been executed. Former Republican Congressman and U.S. Attorney Bob Barr sums it up perfectly when he says that not only is Troy Davis’ life at stake “but so is the credibility of our criminal justice system.”

Governor Sonny Perdue, who rejected pleas from the head of the Catholic Church Pope Benedict to intervene in the case, has said, “I don’t think we ought to be moved by people who believe in capital punishment or people who don’t believe in capital punishment.” Whilst there is clear division amongst the American people on the issue of the death penalty, surely the need for society to have justice is universal.

Davis only requests one thing. “All I ask for is a True Day in a Just Court. If I am so guilty why do the courts deny me that?” he said. Perdue has said that he believes “the worst thing we could do is put an innocent person to death.” 129 people on death row have been exonerated since 1973, and unless Troy gets a fair trial then “the worst thing” in the words of Governor Perdue could happen on Tuesday, like it nearly happened in the cases of 129 innocent people.