Georgia executes Troy Davis after his last pleas fail

[Nyktipolos]

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44592285/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

JACKSON, Ga.  — Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection late Wednesday for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer, after convincing thousands but not the justice system of his innocence.

Davis was declared dead at 11:08 p.m. EDT.

His execution came after a three-hour hold while the Supreme Court considered a late request for a stay. In the end the court refused to stop the execution, despite calls for clemency from former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and others.

Although Davis' attorneys say seven of nine key witnesses against him recanted all or parts of their testimony, state and federal judges repeatedly ruled against granting him a new trial.

I don't have any words for this...

[Asch]

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44592285/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/



I don't have any words for this...

 
I do.

Willingham.

How we (the U.S.) can claim to be enlightened champions of human rights when we still execute people and force our citizens to live as second class people because of who they love...etc, etc, etc.... *sigh*

[Juniperberry]

I do.

Willingham.

How we (the U.S.) can claim to be enlightened champions of human rights when we still execute people and force our citizens to live as second class people because of who they love...etc, etc, etc.... *sigh*

 
It's pretty sad that an attractive whit emother who was the last person to see her child alive., who admitted to knowing about and being involved in her death, is a free woman while a black man who has pled innocent and provided evidence that the trial was unconstitutional still gets executed.

[Etheric1]

It's pretty sad that an attractive white mother who was the last person to see her child alive., who admitted to knowing about and being involved in her death, is a free woman while a black man who has pled innocent and provided evidence that the trial was unconstitutional still gets executed.

 
That was my initial reaction as well.

[Asch]

That was my initial reaction as well.

 
Agreed. Willingham wasn't black but he was desperately poor, uneducated, and had a record...

[hufflee]

That was my initial reaction as well.

 
Mine too.

[Nyktipolos]

It's pretty sad that an attractive whit emother who was the last person to see her child alive., who admitted to knowing about and being involved in her death, is a free woman while a black man who has pled innocent and provided evidence that the trial was unconstitutional still gets executed.

 
That seems to be the general reaction I'm finding to the situation. Although most of it doesn't involve Casey Anthony, almost every agrees Davis was not given a real chance to prove his innocence and his execution is racially motivated.

[Darkhawk]

That seems to be the general reaction I'm finding to the situation. Although most of it doesn't involve Casey Anthony, almost every agrees Davis was not given a real chance to prove his innocence and his execution is racially motivated.

 
Actually, part of the problem is that the courts previously demanded that he "prove his innocence" when most of the testimony that backed their demonstration of his guilt collapsed in recantations.  (And, IIRC, some mostly-suppressed scandal about coerced testimony.)

[Lonstar]

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44592285/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/



I don't have any words for this...

 
I do.

"Unjust."

Saddens me that all the lecturing politicians do to people abroad and then they allow something like this to occur on their own soil. With so much flawed 'evidence' in this case it is unbelievable Davis was murdered.

[EJay]

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44592285/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/



I don't have any words for this...

 
Y'all are looking for justice in the justice system.  Ain't no such critter.  You're judged by how effective your representation is and by what was presented in court--the man looked guilty and was judged so by a jury of his piers.  Once the Law puts its foot down on your neck, regardless of what turns up later that wasn't originally presented as "evidence," too bad for you.  Rules are rules and laws are laws and you get to die defending those rules.

However, I think y'all are way off base trying to make this a race issue and I don't think those flames need to be fanned.

The root problem is that one's innocence depends on the quality of the lawyer and those come with a price.  That has nothing to do with race but everything to do with financial means and hiring the one who knows how to twist and subserve "justice" to their own ends.  Then the judicial monster gets bogged down with walls of books full of "precedent."

Don't go after the race card--Troy Davis' trial, verdict, and execution has nothing to with the acquittal of Casey Anthony, except as confirmation of the ineptitude and corruption of our judicial system.

If you're going to shoot, make sure you have the right target.

Best~
Ejay

[Melamphoros]

Y'all are looking for justice in the justice system.  Ain't no such critter.  You're judged by how effective your representation is and by what was presented in court--the man looked guilty and was judged so by a jury of his piers.  Once the Law puts its foot down on your neck, regardless of what turns up later that wasn't originally presented as "evidence," too bad for you.  Rules are rules and laws are laws and you get to die defending those rules.

However, I think y'all are way off base trying to make this a race issue and I don't think those flames need to be fanned.

The root problem is that one's innocence depends on the quality of the lawyer and those come with a price.  That has nothing to do with race but everything to do with financial means and hiring the one who knows how to twist and subserve "justice" to their own ends.  Then the judicial monster gets bogged down with walls of books full of "precedent."

Don't go after the race card--Troy Davis' trial, verdict, and execution has nothing to with the acquittal of Casey Anthony, except as confirmation of the ineptitude and corruption of our judicial system.

If you're going to shoot, make sure you have the right target.

 
Using this as a jumping off point, look at O.J. Simpson.  He got away with a double homicide because he could afford a good team of lawyers (of course, the general public not knowing that much about the forensics may have had something to do with it).  Just goes to show you can get away with anything if you're rich enough.

[sailor]

Using this as a jumping off point, look at O.J. Simpson.  He got away with a double homicide because he could afford a good team of lawyers (of course, the general public not knowing that much about the forensics may have had something to do with it).  Just goes to show you can get away with anything if you're rich enough.

 
Well, that and the police got caught trying to frame a guilty man.

[Chabas]

However, I think y'all are way off base trying to make this a race issue and I don't think those flames need to be fanned.

The root problem is that one's innocence depends on the quality of the lawyer and those come with a price.  That has nothing to do with race but everything to do with financial means and hiring the one who knows how to twist and subserve "justice" to their own ends.  Then the judicial monster gets bogged down with walls of books full of "precedent."

Don't go after the race card--Troy Davis' trial, verdict, and execution has nothing to with the acquittal of Casey Anthony, except as confirmation of the ineptitude and corruption of our judicial system.

I'll agree that comparisons to Casey Anthony are fairly pointless. I'd disagree on saying that this - whether the Troy Davis case specifically, or death penalty in general - is not a racial issue though. Even if it were purely a financial issue, socio-economic reality would be that since people of color, on average, have lower income and higher rates of poverty, it *does* hit communities of color harder than white communities. If nothing else, this allows the white majority to pass things off as "not our problem.

However, it *isn't* a purely financial issue. Amnesty International has details here. African-American defendants are far more likely to get death sentences compared to white defendants, and the most important determinant of whether death penalty is even asked for? Race of the victim. (The pdf link on the amnesty site doesn't seem to be working. This one does.)

More specifically relevant for this case, error rates in capital cases seem to have a racial component to them. Quoting from the full report, p20, citing a 2002 Columbia Law study on error rates in capital cases:

1. The closer the homicide risk to whites in a state comes to equalling or surpassing the risk to blacks, the higher the error rate.  Other things being equal, reversal rate is twice as high where homicides are most heavily concentrated on whites compared to blacks, than where they are the most heavily concentrated on blacks.  

2. The higher proportion of African-Americans in a state – and in one analysis, the more welfare recipients in a state – the higher the rate of serious capital error.  Because this effect has to do with traits of the population at large, not those of particular trial participants, it appears to be an indicator of crime fears driven by racial and economic conditions.

 
Racial influences in specific cases may be hard to pinpoint, but honestly, the only way to define cases like this as not racially influenced would be to insist that they take place in a social vacuum. I prefer to deal with reality, in which these cases take place in a context where somehow, the majority of these cases involve black defendants getting the short stick.

--Chabas

[mandrina]

Well, that and the police got caught trying to frame a guilty man.

 
Yeah, that'll get a guilty man off faster than anything, with even remotely competent counsel.

[KittyVel]

It's pretty sad that an attractive whit emother who was the last person to see her child alive., who admitted to knowing about and being involved in her death, is a free woman while a black man who has pled innocent and provided evidence that the trial was unconstitutional still gets executed.

 
I completely agree.  It's a shame...