Barely a week ago, Georgia inmate Troy Davis was executed for allegedly killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail. Though questions surrounding Davis’s innocence were once highly debated, the story is already disappearing from the public consciousness. Riots and rallies for his cause are beginning to die down as once dedicated supporters are moving on and returning to their everyday lives. The mainstream media has shifted its attention toward more “pressing” national issues, like Facebook’s new user interface. Whether or not an innocent man was executed by our justice system is now yesterday’s concern.
This is the devastating reality of a justice system that considers the death penalty an acceptable form of punishment. Convicts are executed, and citizens are left with nothing but emptiness and the urge to move on. Many will go on to forget Mr. Davis and all the doubt surrounding his guilt– the seven witnesses that recanted their testimonies amid rumors of police coercion, the murder weapon that was never found by investigators and rumors that the man who was with Davis on the night of the 1989 murder had confessed to others that he killed MacPhail.
Others will take up Davis’s final challenge to continue pursuing the facts, but what good can come of it? It’s possible that advances in science may finally provide the opportunity to exonerate Troy Davis, but it will be too late. There will be no redemption. He will never get the opportunity to walk as a free man, to see his family again or to thank his thousands of supporters across the country for believing in him for over two decades. There will only be heartache and bewilderment because no court—not even the Supreme Court—was able to prevent the death of an innocent man.
If one was to assign Troy Davis a legacy, let it be that his death is a reminder of everything that’s wrong with capital punishment. Aside from the disturbing possibility that innocent people may be sentenced to death, there is also a tremendous cost that goes into the practice. Georgia spent over 20 years and undoubtedly an astronomical sum of taxpayer money trying to put Davis six feet under. If a state is going to dedicate that much time and capital to killing one man, then his name better be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Executing a man whose conviction rested upon potentially coerced witness testimonies is wrong to begin with; going to such extreme lengths to do so borders on insanity.
His execution is also a harsh reminder of the institutional racism that exists in the employment of the death penalty. According to statistics provided by the Death Penalty Information Center, those convicted of murder are three times more likely to be given the death sentence in cases where the victim is white than in cases where the victim is black. More alarmingly, the same source reveals cases of interracial murder where the defendant was white and the victim was black has resulted in 17 total executions, compared to the 255 executions that have resulted from cases where the defendant was black and the victim was white.
The numbers are staggering and many will rightfully discern that there has been a clear racial bias in the use of the death penalty. The solution to this problem is simple—the death penalty needs to go. It’s been a long time since the death penalty debate was held on a national stage. Hopefully Troy Davis’s death will provide a platform to bring this issue to the public’s attention. His execution should never have been allowed to happen, and Americans cannot allow that injustice to fade from their minds. The death penalty debate needs to be revived. Nothing can be done to save Troy Davis, but Americans can stop others from suffering from the same fate.
Excuse me, BU Quad, how can you go from this sentence: “There will only be heartache and bewilderment because no court—not even the Supreme Court—was able to prevent the death of an innocent man.” to
“If one was to assign Troy Davis a legacy, let it be that his death is a reminder of everything that’s wrong with capital punishment.”
Huh? I would have thought there would be a little more searching as to the “ability” of a Supreme Court to prevent an innocent person’s death. Why are you leaping to another topic? (the topic of the death penalty) Is this Boston University’s student magazine? Do you actually believe a court could not stop an execution?
Shame on you.
Mary,
the point is that the structures and institutions we have in place (such as the Supreme Court) are far too irresponsible and inadequate to be trusted with handling capital punishment in any manner that even approaches trustworthy, consistent, or just. Troy Davis is not an isolated case. America has a long and repulsive history of utilizing the death penalty in a careless and destructive way. At some point it ceases to be about the particular individuals in charge and the way they are using their powers and begins to be about the power itself. Troy Davis and the countless other individuals who have been wronged by this reckless institution tells us that we cannot trust our judicial system with the power of execution. The death penalty cannot be reformed in a humane way; it’s not realistic in a society comprised of human beings, and it’s not really all that worth it, to be honest. Total abolition of this sick and barbaric method of “justice” is the only responsible path forward.
Peace. Love. Freedom. Solidarity.
The question is who is next to be wrongly excecuted. If I cannot rely on the system of justice to be applied fairly then what is the purpose of it. Justice is relevant, I am sure while the McPhail family feels that justice was rendered even though it was built upon shoddy evidence, the Davis family feels that Troy was unjustly excecuted due to the shoddy evidence. The notion of fairness gets skewed when the reality of color is introduced.