I don't know if Davis was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted but I share the concerns of thousands including the Pope, a former FBI director, and and ex-president of the United States that there were serious doubts as to his guilt.
The prosecutor in the case says that he is certain that Davis was guilty. The lack of any physical evidence linking Davis to the shooting and the recanting of key testimony by alleged witnesses to the crime did nothing to shake the prosecutor's certainty. He suggests that the witnesses lied when they recanted their identification of Davis as the shooter. I wish that I had his certainty.
Instead, I worry that the state of Georgia may have executed a man for a crime which he didn't commit. I worry that the witnesses, who say that their identification of Davis as the shooter was coerced by the police who wanted to be certain of a conviction of someone for killing one of their own, are telling the truth. I worry that the man who conveniently first pinned the shooting on Davis and who has subsequently been identified as the real shooter by an eyewitness, may have had a personal interest in misdirecting police attention to Davis. I worry that the cornerstone of criminal jurisprudence, the standard in capital cases of "beyond a reasonable doubt" has been disregarded in the state's execution of Troy Davis.
I feel for the MacPhail family, but the repeated assertions by them that Davis has had every opportunity to prove his innocence, gets it all wrong. Criminal prosecution is not about the defendant proving his innocence, it's about the state proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the highest standard of proof that must be met in any trial. It's difficult to precisely define what the phrase means, but common law and case law have carved out the following definition:
The standard that must be met by the prosecution's evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.The prosecution stands firm in its belief that a jury of Mr. Davis' peers convicted him based on the the evidence with a certainty that was beyond reasonable doubt. Even accepting that as valid, what does it do to that conviction when the evidence presented by seven of the nine witnesses in that jury trial has been recanted by those witnesses?
It's difficult for many of us to imagine lying because you want to escape continued questioning by law enforcement. However, innocent people have confessed to crimes that they did not commit under the stress of police questioning. Did you know that the police are allowed to lie to you while questioning you? Their goal is to get you to admit "the truth."
I don't know what went on when those witnesses were questioned. I don't know if their subsequent recanting of testimony was the truth. What I do know is that no person should be executed by the state if there is any doubt as to that person's guilt.
I admit that I oppose the death penalty in principal. I don't believe that the state should be in the business of taking what it cannot give. In the words of John Donne, "...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."
Troy Davis died Wednesday night at 11:08 p.m. but we were all diminished by his death.
I was far too disgusted to write about this, but you've done so well, I'm glad I didn't.
ReplyDeleteWell done.
A CNN poll this morning shows our fellow barbarians solidly behind having the government kill people in cold blood. Our countrymen who have no reasonable doubt that space aliens taught us how to build buildings or that bracelets "tuned to natural frequencies" will help our arthritis or that every weekly miracle breakthrough in "alternative" medicine will cure what ails us like the magic duck tape that draws unspecified "toxins" out of our feet.
Reasonable doubt is dead and how we know things to be true has more to do with our subconscious fears, or our political urges and buried emotions from deep in our solipsistic bubbles -- all of which are controlled by commercial interests and political ambition. We believe in our believing more than we believe in civil rights or justice or the dignity of human life.
Yes, I'm disgusted and yes we are diminished because we permitted someone else to be killed because we were afraid of him, because someone saw it as a career move and a justification for their job, because we don't give a damn if it makes us feel safer, because we worship authority all the while we're protesting it. We permitted it, whether we were for or against it and now there is more blood on our hands if not on our shriveled and meretricious consciences.
We wave our faiths like battle flags, we pray for rain and that the random wrath of nature will hit someone else. We sneer at unbelievers and humanism, we put our worm eaten morals on an altar and worship ourselves and our piety and we sacrifice people to the stone-hearted idol that we created in our image.
We're afraid of him - kill him. God doesn't care because 64% of us support killing him and besides, God will make it up to him in heaven and this we staunchly believe. and you gotta believe in something, right?
Today, I feel more than diminished. I feel anger, bitterness, and vulnerable to the feeling that it can happen to me, a member of my family, a friend for simply being in the wrong place, for being in the presence of a malevolent witness who may not like me, the way I dress, or the way I talk, or what I believe in. Today I feel an assault on the integrity of my own personhood as anyone can bear false witness for any reason, for a belief, an affiliation, an act of revenge, a coverup. Today I hate this fucking country because it no longer stands for anything I used to cherish. Part of me died today along with Troy Anthony Davis. May he rest in peace.
ReplyDeleteFrom a distance... I have few words, only sadness. My wife followed the proceedings as they unfolded live last evening. I couldn't watch; didn't want to feel. Well written post, Sheria, feel so sorry for Troy Davis and all others like him, and sympathize with the Capt. and Octo and all other Americans, and there are a great many, who disagree with this approach to "justice."
ReplyDeleteSheria - you have done a most excellent job writing this post. I have mostly supported capital punishment for those who are clearly guilty of killing others but my stance has changed over the years as I have come to realize for every person put to death who really did their crimes there are who knows how many innocent people also getting the death penalty and once it is done, it can't be taken back.
ReplyDeleteI thought of the death penalty as a deterrent in that the cold blooded killer would never have the chance to walk the streets and do it again. It's scary to think of say Manson or some serial killer ever having a chance at parole not matter how unlikely, the chance is always there.
But under our present system of justice I think there are just too many errors in judgement, procedure and structure of laws to use the death penalty with assurance of accuracy.
I am profoundly saddened that Troy Davis has become another statistic in our flawed judicial process.
Sheria,
ReplyDeleteI am taking the liberty of bringing forward a comment posted yesterday under the preceding article because I believe it also belongs here:
"Years ago when I was living in London, I was myself the victim of a crime - attacked by three muggers on the street one evening on my way home from class. Slashed with box cutters, I ended up in hospital for a week and still to this day suffer an occasional flashback.
About six months later, I received a call from Metropolitan police. They had rounded up a street gang and asked if I would come in for a lineup to identify them. Not behind glass as our lineups are conducted, but face-to-face. I could walk around and among them, as if inspecting livestock. At one point, the detective whispered in my ear: "Third from the right."
In response, I said that the attack was late in the evening, no street lamps, and 6 months ago, "sorry officer," and left the precinct station.
I felt twice abused and humiliated that day - first from the original assault, and subsequently from the prompting of the officer. Perhaps, I had blocked out all visual memory of my attackers; trauma works that way.
Today, I still have a signs of a 4-inch gash on the left side of my face (carefully stitched together by the British emergency room physicians), but the scar is insignificant compared with the torment of that memory."
My point about my personal experience as a crime victim: Crime hurts but it hurts a victim even more when a person in a position of authority prompts or compels or coerces false testimony. I felt shock and humiliation for being made to feel like a chump just because I could no longer identify my attackers. Nobody has the right to alter the reality of what I saw or felt that night … or what I can longer recall with honesty. Had I caved to the prompting of the police officer, would that have assuaged the hurt? No!
While I sympathize with the loss of a fine young man early in life, I cannot fathom what the MacPhail family gains from this execution. How can they be sure in the face of overwhelming doubt. And suppose, in time, Sylvestor Coles turns out to be the murderer, or third person? Will everyone take out their Bibles and resurrect Troy Davis Lazarus-like from the dead?
Rocky,
I walked the same path as you. The death penalty was not a hot button topic with me until The Innocence Project showed how flawed our Criminal Injustice System is. My experience in London was the beginning of my change in heart. The deterrent argument is no argument at all, never has been. If 273 executions in Texas alone have not deterred capital murder, what will?
Sheria,
ReplyDeleteWell said. As I remarked in my comment on the previous post about Troy Davis, I condemn the execution that just took place. It was carried out in the teeth of developments that should have halted the process and resulted in a new trial.
I think people generally don't realize just how slippery or sandy are the foundations of personal identity and integrity. Merely to be accused of something, let alone convicted, in large part strips you of your very self, the "self" that might think he or she can speak with authority: "I wouldn't do that sort of thing, it wasn't me, etc." Once you're accused of doing something deplorable, all that authority goes out the window: if you have to use it, you're very likely to lose it. It's hard to say something's "out of character" for you -- one of Aristotle's forensic hallmarks in the Rhetoric, if memory serves -- if you have just had your character run through a DOD-level shredder that places it beyond recognition or recovery. Kafka deals well with this phenomenon in his literary works -- the effect I'm addressing is indeed "Kafkaesque."
I think it's fair to say that in spite of the wise old saying "innocent until proven guilty," the average experience with criminal justice is the opposite: if you're not very wealthy and well-connected, you're probably going down even if you're innocent, unless you happen to end up with an extraordinarily smart jury, a more than commonly thoughtful and observant judge and a more than commonly fair-minded prosecutorial team.
If that's the situation of most any ordinary "accused," how much worse must it be once that accused is falsely CONVICTED of a serious offense? After all, the thinking goes, if a man would kill someone, what's to keep him from lying every minute of every day? Killing is worse than lying.
As for what Rocky writ, yes, that's my view -- it's possible to make a case for taking out a villain soon after the deed he has done, but it's incompatible with the demand for fairness leveled by modern justice; when you must wait twenty years to kill someone, I think that alters the nature of the act itself, making it something that civilized people shouldn't do.
I am, again, sickened by all of this. I have never been for the death penalty. Under any circumstances. The international company that we keep in this regard should - if nothing else - be a hint to our country as to just how barbaric it is.
ReplyDeleteLeading executioners - Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, China and the US. No doubt North Korea is vying for a top spot with us all as well.
What saddens and angers me is that the eloquently expressed views of each of you represent the point of view of well less than half of our fellow Americans.
ReplyDeleteDino, eloquently stated. The Kafkaesque is a subtle aspect of the disease not often noted, but certainly felt by all victims of the system, including the criminals. Octo's experience certainly adds to the emotional evidence...
ReplyDeleteAgain we're back to that left–right divide between empathy and utility.