Troy Davis was lethally injected Wednesday night in Georgia after being on death row for the murder of a cop named Phil MacPhail. Prosecutors said Davis shot MacPhail in a parking lot in 1989. Troy pleaded his innocence till the end, claiming that he did not even have a gun. Witnesses placed Davis at the crime scene and identified him as the shooter, but several of them have recanted their accounts and some jurors have said they've changed their minds about his guilt. Others have claimed a man who was with Davis that night has told people he actually shot the officer. No gun was ever found, but prosecutors say shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting for which Davis was convicted. Davis' plea for a new trial was never granted. Supporters staged vigils in the U.S. and Europe. As many as 700 demonstrators gathered outside the prison as a few dozen riot police stood watch, but the crowd thinned as the night wore on and the outcome became clear.
While writing my analysis, it was brought to my attention that another man, who was sentenced to death in Georgia, was recently given a last minute pardon to serve life in prison without parole. I believe the word on everyone’s mind is “unjust”. Samuel David Crowe is a white man, and Troy Davis was a black man. Samuel gets to live while Troy had to die. This brings to mind racial inequality in the sense that because of Troy’s skin color and the fact that he supposedly shot a white cop, he was never able to receive a new trial regardless of attorney’s vigil efforts and recent witness uncertainty. It is impossible to really say if racism was the underlying cause, but as society has proven, even today there is a structured inequality among the races. Also, the death penalty alone has sparked much divide in our society especially. This case has ignited people from all over the world, both who are for and against the death penalty, to really question our government and ask: is it right?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10753519
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/22/us-usa-execution-idUSN2250765020080522
2 comments:
The word "unjust" is exactly what comes to mind when reading about this case. In a way, I do believe that the racism was the underlying cause of Troy Davis being executed. Why wasn't he given a last minute pardon? Why was Davud Crowe given a chance to live and not Troy? It just seems really unfair to me. Racism is a social global problem that continues to cause a lot of strife.
How in the world can someone ever be convicted without any evidence.It's a little to late for jurors to change their minds about him being guilty the case should have been further investigated. I believe it does result back to race because the execution rates for African Americans and Hispanics is nearly triple what it is for Caucasians. Also if you actually have someone saying that they did the shooting and the person saying he didn't do it is innocent how can you put the innocent one to death. I feel that it is crazy for people to feel like they made a mistake the real mistake was killing another human being for no known reason.
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