We Cannot Answer that Question Now – But Enough Doubts Exist That We Should Never Have Executed Him –
The execution of Troy Davis should haunt any reasonable person that is concerned about the possibility of executing an innocent person. This is not a case of Cameron Todd Willingham, where we know for a fact that the forensic evidence used at the time of his execution to determine that it was an arson fire was flawed.
In his final moments, Mr. Davis was described by Greg Bluestein of the AP, one of five witnesses to execution, as lifting his head from the gurney to look directly into the eyes of the family of Mark MacPhail, the police officer who was killed and for whose murder Mr. Davis was convicted.
“I want to talk to the MacPhail family,” he said. “I was not responsible for what happened that night. I did not have a gun. I was not the one who took the life of your father, son, brother.”
He would appeal to his family and friends to keep the faith and told the medical personnel, “May God have mercy on your souls.”
He was then executed.
Wrote the London Guardian: “The debate about what happened in Georgia’s Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson late on Wednesday night will continue long after the gurney has been put away. In the final gruesome hours of waiting, the American judicial system at its very highest echelons was involved – including the US Supreme Court, which issued the decisive final ruling. The decision to press ahead with the death sentence despite serious doubts over Davis’s guilt drew accusations that this was the system at its most grotesque.”
Seven of the nine witnesses at Mr. Davis’ trial, which was held in 1991, have since recanted and claimed that they were coerced to lie by Savannah police. Among them was a man who testified that he had seen the killing and that it was not Mr. Davis but another man, Sylvester Cole, who was the shooter.
Another witness testified that she had heard Mr. Cole confess three times to the killing, and using Mr. Davis as the fall guy.
Wrote Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project: “Despite the seriousness of these allegations and the sheer number of recantations, Georgia courts and state officials have not only been unwilling to stay his execution, but they have even refused to hold a hearing with live, sworn testimony to assess the credibility of the recanting witnesses.”
The question that I ponder in the aftermath is what was the urgency of putting him to death without at least resolving any remaining doubt about his guilt?
Wrote Mr. Scheck: “The recantation of a witness alone does not and should not automatically result in a conviction being vacated — recantation evidence is treated with caution by courts because, after all, the witness is saying he or she once lied under oath, so how can one be so sure they are not just lying again?”
But he added, “Nonetheless, many wrongful convictions have been overturned because a recanting witness, testifying in person and under oath before a judge, is found to be credible and the reason for the recantation – often a claim that the original trial testimony was coerced – is found to be persuasive.”
“But in Georgia the recanting witnesses don’t get to testify because the state’s courts have created an extraordinary Catch-22 rule — the ‘purest fabrication’ doctrine – that arbitrarily denies evidentiary hearings even when extremely persuasive recantation affidavits have been submitted,” he explained.
“The ‘purest fabrication’ doctrine means that post-conviction hearings don’t have to be held to evaluate the credibility of recanting witnesses unless the defendant can show, by extrinsic proof before the hearing is held, that the original testimony was absolutely false,” Mr. Scheck continued.
As Mr. Scheck pointed out, if you throw out the testimony from these witnesses, the remaining evidence is very thin. There is no physical evidence to link him to the crime.
The case once again turned on the testimony of two jailhouse witnesses, both of whom have since recanted, and seven eyewitnesses, five of whom have since recanted.
As Mr. Scheck argues, “The steady drumbeat of DNA exonerations in recent years — 223 people who served more than 2,500 combined years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit — shows that eyewitnesses can get it wrong and jailhouse snitches lie.”
The New Yorker wrote that an execution is not a rare or isolated event, there have been more than thirty executions this year and Mr. Davis was not even the only execution scheduled for that day.
But they write, “But the Davis case has struck a chord because of the number of people – thoughtful people who have spent years engrossed in the details – who have real doubts about his guilt, and can cite the affidavits of witnesses who’ve recanted, or who should have been called, but weren’t.”
On September 20, the NY Times, in an editorial, called it a “grievous wrong.”
They wrote, “The Georgia pardon and parole board’s refusal to grant him clemency is appalling in light of developments after his conviction: reports about police misconduct, the recantation of testimony by a string of eyewitnesses and reports from other witnesses that another person had confessed to the crime.”
It took them twenty years to get to the execution. If you are going to have legalized execution in this country, something that I very much oppose, you at least owe it to the victims and the defendants alike to make sure you got it right before you pull the switch, I mean, don’t you?
There are just too many doubts here, or should have been.
Wrote the Times, “The grievous errors in the Davis case were numerous, and many arose out of eyewitness identification. The Savannah police contaminated the memories of four witnesses by re-enacting the crime with them present so that their individual perceptions were turned into a group one. The police showed some of the witnesses Mr. Davis’s photograph even before the lineup. His lineup picture was set apart by a different background. The lineup was also administered by a police officer involved in the investigation, increasing the potential for influencing the witnesses.”
They add, “In the decades since the Davis trial, science-based research has shown how unreliable and easily manipulated witness identification can be. Studies of the hundreds of felony cases overturned because of DNA evidence have found that misidentifications accounted for between 75 percent and 85 percent of the wrongful convictions. The Davis case offers egregious examples of this kind of error.”
This case highlights exactly the issue of both eyewitness identification and the use of jailhouse informants. There have been huge strides made on both of those fronts this year. California has passed legislation sponsored by Senator Mark Leno to hopefully correct some of the abuses of the reliance on jailhouse informant testimony. At the same time, the New Jersey Supreme Court focused attention on fixing eyewitness identification procedures to prevent the kind of contamination and intimidation that occurred in this case.
“Three jurors who sentenced Davis to the death penalty testified that had they known about the problems with eyewitness identification, they would not have sentenced Davis to death,” the Associated Press reported.
In addition, advocates for changing these rules hope they have reached a turning point where the Davis execution can at least focus the larger populace on the problems of eyewitness identification.
“We expect that this will be a huge issue in 2012,” said Rebecca Brown of the Innocence Project. “Our approach is this: We want uniform implementation of best practices, however that happens.”
Following the execution Mr. Scheck said: “Troy Davis was executed in spite of serious doubt about his guilt. The state clemency system in Georgia and in many other states is not functioning as an effective safety valve in cases where there is serious doubt about guilt. Any objective, fair-minded observer would have to conclude the risk of executing an innocent person in the U.S. is unacceptably high.”
Paul Cates, the director of communications for the Innocence Project added: “Since his original trial, substantial evidence has come to light pointing to Davis’ innocence. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations has conceded that the ballistics evidence used against Davis was unreliable, and one of the jurors who sat on the case said that if she had known about that she would not have voted to give Davis the death penalty. Seven of the nine witnesses who identified him as the shooter have recanted their testimony. One of the two witnesses who maintain that Davis was the shooter is thought by many to be the real perpetrator and has made admissions to others that he committed the crime. The other remaining eyewitness had been up for 24 hours straight at the time he observed the shooting and reported on the night of the crime that he ‘wouldn’t recognize [the shooter] again.’ Yet two years later, this witness identified Troy Davis in an in-court identification that required him to simply identify the only African-American sitting at the defense table.
“Misidentification was a factor in 75 percent of the 273 DNA exonerations. In 38 percent of these mistaken identification cases, multiple eyewitnesses misidentified the same person.”
Unfortunately, despite all of these doubts it is too late.
Perhaps the only people who are convinced of Troy Davis’ guilt are the family of the slain officer McPhail.
The Savannah paper this week reported that the relatives of Mr. McPhail are ready to move on and heal.
“It’s a sad day. There’s nothing to rejoice,” Joan MacPhail-Harris, the widow of Mark MacPhail, told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday night after leaving the state prison in Jackson that houses Georgia’s death row. “It’s over and now it’s a time for healing for all families. We’re thankful we don’t have to come back.”
“I can’t believe that it’s really happened,” Anneliese MacPhail, his mother, said. “All the feelings of relief and peace I’ve been waiting for all these years, they will come later. I certainly do want some peace.”
“The slain officer’s mother remained convinced of Davis’ guilt but said she wasn’t surprised he maintained his innocence to the end,” the paper reported.
“I can imagine that,” she said. “He’s been telling himself that for 22 years. You know how it is. He can talk himself into anything.”
Many believe that such an execution will bring no closure to the family. Maybe at some point they will pause for a second and this will bother them. It would certainly bother me if there were nagging doubts about someone’s guilt.
Wrote the Christian Science Monitor this week, “But while the Davis execution may not be a game-changer for the death penalty, it did become part of a growing conversation – more across kitchen tables than legislative chambers – about the courts’ ability to ensure that innocent people aren’t killed or die in prison.”
The Monitor quotes Michael Radelet, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado, who studies the death penalty.
“Death penalty attitudes don’t change suddenly,” he said. “What’s more important is monitoring how arguments or discussions about the death penalty change, and what Troy Davis has done is make people, whether pro or con, acknowledge that people are executed despite doubts about guilt.”
The Washington Post today writes, “The execution has given new life to the debate over the death penalty, with notable figures like former President Jimmy Carter using Davis’ s case as an example of the policy’s faults.”
They note, “Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis for the murder of an off-duty police officer has done little to resolve the debate over his guilt that captured the attention of thousands worldwide, including a former president and the pope.”
Former President Jimmy Carter, himself a fellow Georgian, said: “If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Racism is at an all time high in this country. Bless Troy’s Brave and Fearless Soul. I am Troy Davis!
[quote]Did We Execute a [b] Convicted Felon [/b] in Troy Davis?[/quote]
A poster on another blog wrote: “The problem lies for the supporters and attorneys of Davis due to their effort to “create doubt” about whether Troy Davis was innocent or guilty instead of providing irrefutable proof that he was innocent. When you look at the decisions rendered thus far in the 42-year-old man’s search for freedom, courts kept saying the burden of proof of innocence was missing.”
Hmmm…
To me, the fundamental question if you are willing to have a death penalty at all is what the standard should be. This is not merely a matter of reasonable doubt that has crept in, these are fundamental questions about the premise by which we ended the life of someone at the hands of the state. Are you arguing that you believe unequivocally that he committed this crime?
“Did We Execute a Convicted Felon in Troy Davis?”
Would he have been convicted based on the state of the record and evidence that exists today? If the answer is no, then you have to at least not execute the guy.
[quote]Racism is at an all time high in this country.[/quote]
Seven of the 12 jurors in the initial case were black. Totally racist.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/troy-davis-guilty-as-charged/2011/03/04/gIQAh23BoK_blog.html
Worth a read if you want an alternative opinion. Sorry, I don’t know how to link to the article.
There was another execution the same day in Texas that drew 100 protestors
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/21/us/AP-US-Texas-Execution-Dragging-Death.html?_r=1&hp[/url]
Why no concern about whether that one was a false conviction?
It is one thing to question whether the death penalty was fairly applied (the equation, death of cop = death penalty should be questioned)… “innocence” goes to whether he should have been convicted and incarcerated at all. It is no more ‘just’ to have an innocent person incarcerated with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, than it is to have them executed. Just my opinion.
True hpierce. The only difference is that you can exonerate someone who is in prison, you can’t when they are executed.
J.R.: [i]Why no concern about whether that one was a false conviction?[/i]
Because he confessed. Why do you ask?
[quote]It is no more ‘just’ to have an innocent person incarcerated with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, than it is to have them executed.[/quote]
Hawkeye: I would respectfully disagree here. If we have learned anything from the innocence project it is that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable and coercion from the police is quite common. A corolary to this is that even a jury conviction by peers may not be enough to ensure that innocent people do not routine become executed/sentenced.
I have no idea if Mr. Davis is innocent or not but there appears to enough reasonable doubt to at least commute his sentence. I do not oppose the death penalty in principle for heinous crimes (including cop killing) but it is very apparent that our justice system does not do a good job sentencing people to death.
correction: corollary
This guy was guilty and deserved to die for what he did.
Which guy Rusty? Davis? Based on what evidence?
JR
“Why no concern about whether that one was a false conviction?”
Because he was white.
Don Shor
“Because he confessed. Why do you ask?”
How do you know it wasn’t a forced confession? It’s so easy to create doubt years after the crime and trial. The people that do that are good at their jobs.
That being said that guy in Texas that killed James Byrd deserved to die too.
Rusty:
I think your point actually illustrates the strength of the argument in the Davis case. While it is true death penalty opponents may oppose, as i do, the dp in all cases. It is also true that generally speaking they save their efforts for the more questionable cases. You ask why no one made a big deal out of one, probably because there was not much doubt that the guy did it. I have no doubt for instance that Topete killed Deputy Diaz, I have a huge amount of doubt that Troy Davis killed the police officer in his case. How do we know? We evaluate the case against him and determine how strong it is.
@ Dr Wu…. my comment was on the general concept of innocence vs. either capital punishment or LWP. You “disagree with me” re: the concept of the reliability of eyewitness reliability &/or the ‘facts’ of the case… I rendered no opinion on either. I did not say that Davis was rightfully executed. I did not say he was not. You have little or no idea of what my opinion of the death penalty concept is. Please read my words, then feel free to agree or disagree. You have made a good argument for questioning the reliability of ‘eye-witnesses’ by your interpretation of why you disagree with what I wrote. I suspect (but do not know) that your response was based on your opinions, using my words as a “foil”. You’d probably make a good “I-witness”
There needs to be a different degree for convicting someone in a death penalty situation. The death penalty should be considered only when there is no doubt. If there is some doubt, one could always elect for life without parole.
Personally I am not in favor of the death penalty at all, but this option might be a better scenario than what is out there right now.
[quote]It is no more ‘just’ to have an innocent person incarcerated with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, than it is to have them executed.[/quote]
pierce
So are you saying you now disagree with your statement above? I quoted you verbatim. I still disagree with what you said. It was not a comment on you or you overall philosophy but a disagreement with this statement.
“It is no more just to have an Innocent person incarcerated with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, than it is to have them executed.”
While this statement may be true in the most literal sense of justice, it misses two critical points. First, if the person is still alive, there . still remains the possibility of constructive use of their life even behind bars. Secondly, there is always the possibility that if they are truly innocent, this may at some point, be provable, making the reversibility of the sentence critical.
“It’s over and now is a time for healing of all families.”
I doubt that this will be true for the family members of Mr. Davis, and think it points out the revenge factor at it’s most personal and self centered. Does a family member of Mr.MacPhaill honestly believe that this will bring peace to the family of Mr. Davis ? Or does she not include their feelings in the “all families”. I cannot help but wonder how she would feel if it were her son or brother who she believed had been unjustly executed. Family beliefs, on either side, should never be a factor in deciding the fate of an accused or convict.
“Does a family member of Mr.MacPhaill honestly believe that this will bring peace to the family of Mr. Davis ?”
Medwoman, would you be so compassionate if that were your son or daughter that was killed by Troy Davis? Would you honestly be worried about how peace would be brought to the Davis family. It’s easy to sit back and judge when it’s someone else’s child/family member that was shot in the stomach and face while trying to save a homeless man.
Rusty49
I have had a family member murdered and remain adamantly opposed to the death penalty. And yes, I do have compassion for the family of the convicted, just as I have compassion for the family of the victim.
Rusty:
Your point suffers from multiple errors.
First, you assume that all family members of murder victims support capital punishment. That is simply untrue. There is a range of views that families of murder victims hold.
Second, you presume that Mr. Davis killed MacPhail. At this point, what evidence is that that he did? Don’t tell me that a jury convicted him, because a lot has changed since the trial and three jurors said based on the evidence that has emerge since their verdict, there is no way they would have convicted.
I suspect if it were my family, I would not be supporting capital punishment. I would rather have the guy have to spend the rest of his life in prison And second, I would want to know who really killed my loved one and would not be satisfied with this outcome. In fact, I would be outraged.
Here’s a different prospective, not David’s filtered one:
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_b0e3cb0b-d6a5-5e28-91e4-74c58cfadd8a.html
“Seven of the nine witnesses at Mr. Davis’ trial, which was held in 1991, have since recanted and claimed that they were coerced to lie by Savannah police.”
Excuse me, there were 34 witnesses:
“the state presented 34 witnesses against Davis — not nine — which should give you some idea of how punctilious the media are about their facts in death penalty cases.
Among the witnesses who did not recant a word of their testimony against Davis were three members of the Air Force, who saw the shooting from their van in the Burger King drive-in lane. The airman who saw events clearly enough to positively identify Davis as the shooter explained on cross-examination, “You don’t forget someone that stands over and shoots someone.”
A bloody pair of shorts was found in Troy Davis’s mother’s house which couldn’t be used for evidence because they were taken by the police without a search warrant.
“earlier that same day, Davis had shot and injured a man named Michael Cooper in a completely separate incident. According to Judge Moore, Mr Cooper described his assailant as “a young, tall, African-American male wearing a white batman shirt, a black hat, and shorts”, a description that fitted Davis to a t.”
MacPhail’s killer was also wearing a white Batman t-shirt, black hat and shorts and the shell casings matched Davis’s earlier convicted for crime.
There’s much more………
False convictions are certainly a fundamental problem in any justice system. They will never be completely eliminated, The penalty for prosecutors or witnesses who fake evidence should be extremely severe.
While false convictions probably occur very rarely in death penalty cases, they are quite common in other areas. For example, 25% or more of rape accusations are believed to be false.
See [url] http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-anti-false-rape-accusation-campaign/%5B/url%5D
That’s [url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194032,00.html[/url]
AdRemmer “Did We Execute a Convicted Felon in Troy Davis?”
Believe it or not, a person can be a convicted felon and still be innocent. It happens all the time. Convicting a person of a crime is not about guilt or innocence, it’s about winning and losing for the DA’s office. They rarely care about innocence, which is why they will prosecute people even when there is very little evidence.
I am aware that there are holes in the prosecutor’s case and that post-conviction a large number of witnesses against Troy Davis recanted their testimony.
What I don’t know if if there is any exculpatory evidence which has come to light since his conviction? Or put another way, is there compelling evidence that specifically someone else was the killer?
Until I hear otherwise–from blog posters here or in other readings–I will assume that, even if proof of Davis’s guilt was dubious, his innocence remains even more in doubt.
Let me get a little philosophical here: I strongly support the death penalty. It is a just punishment for taking someone else’s life, when that taking was illegal and malicious in intent.
I wish we could execute those sentenced to die within 4 or 5 years. I wish the appeals process would start right away and conclude in a reasonable amount of time.
However, I think we ought to add a step we don’t have in murder cases: post-conviction, we should have an outside, independent party fully examine the case. That is, have a qualified lawyer-investigator team question all of the physical evidence and examine the testimonial evidence, including evidence which was not admitted at trial, in order to determine if the person tried was truly guilty or if the evidence suggests otherwise.
What we have now is an appeals process which is designed to simply question what went on at trial, what decisions the judge made, and if the convict was treated fairly based on precedent, statutory law, and the Constitution. I am not against any of that. But it misses the point if the evidence was in some way tainted or if the jury was simply incompetent and made the wrong decision.
As I say, I want executions to be swift. The main reason they are not swift now is because our appeals process is constipated. Seven years ago, for example, Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his pregant wife on Christmas Eve of 2002, dumping her and his unborn child in the San Francisco Bay near Richmond. He is sitting on death row. He will be there for at least another 30 years. No one has yet looked at his appeal. It won’t come up for another decade. And then it will take 20 years to make a final determination. For most of the next 30 yars, nothing at all will be done about his case. Nothing.
My suggestion is within a week of a death-penalty conviction, the appeals process needs to start. I would give it up to two years to decide if the judge’s decisions based on precedent, statute and the Constitution were reasonable. At the same time, I would start the re-investigation process. After two years of re-investigating, the lawyer-investigator should be able to declare in a complete report what he did to check evidence and if he found fault with any evidence. If he found none after two years, then the defense should have the right over the next two years to try to provide any new evidence to suggest their client was not guilty. If then, after four years, with the appeals process done and the re-investigation done and no clear faults were found, the execution (by firing squad) should be done.
This would cost less than our present systme. And it would be fairer to the convict.
Rich:
What I have been able to gather is that there was sufficient reason to question the basis of the conviction based on the recanting of the judge. It appears that the judge who reviewed the case placed a high standard of evidence – looking for evidence of innocence – and concluded that there was not sufficient exculpatory evidence to demand a retrial. On the other hand, it appears that had the case been retried there is no way they would have convicted him based on the state of the evidence. I’m just not comfortable with that.
Judge William T. Moore Jr., decided that in order to overturn the original jury verdict, Davis needed not only to cast doubt on the evidence against him, but to provide “clear and compelling” proof of his innocence. In an August 2010 ruling dismissing Davis’ appeal, he declared that while the state’s case “may not be ironclad,” Davis failed to make a showing of “actual innocence” and thus should not be granted a new trial. The evidentiary hearing was the first such legal proceeding in more than 50 years.
“A federal court simply cannot interpose itself and set aside a jury verdict in this case absent a truly persuasive showing of innocence,” Moore wrote. “To act contrarily would wreak complete havoc on the criminal justice system.”
As you know I’m against thee death penalty in all case, but if we are going to have it, I think the standard should be higher than a criminal conviction and should be no doubt. Otherwise keep the guy in prison for life until there is reason to overturn a verdict.
Bob Barr, the former Prosecutor and Republican Congressman published an op-ed asking for clemency.
Barr: Troy Davis merits clemency ([url]http://savannahnow.com/column/2011-09-14/barr-troy-davis-merits-clemency#.TnFZDE8lh88[/url])
Key points:
* In 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declared that it “will not allow an execution to proceed in this state unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.”
* Davis was convicted in 1991 of the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. But there was no physical evidence brought to trial to support his conviction: No murder weapon, no DNA evidence, no surveillance tapes.
* Nine so-called eyewitnesses testified in the trial, and it was on the basis of their testimony that Davis was sentenced to death. Seven of those witnesses, however, have since recanted or materially changed their stories. The jury, for instance, relied on two people who did not witness the crime but who testified that Davis had confessed to the shooting; both have since said they were lying.
* But the federal judge set the bar much higher than the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. Finding — astonishingly for the first time — that executing an innocent man is unconstitutional, the court then required Davis to prove that he was innocent.
* Proving one’s innocence is a far more difficult standard than establishing doubts as to one’s guilt. In fact, proving actual innocence has the effect of flipping our system of criminal jurisprudence on its head: Instead of a presumption of innocence and a requirement by the state to prove guilt.
* In Davis’ evidentiary hearing the court presumed guilt and required the condemned to prove his innocence. Even the judge deemed the standard “extraordinarily high.” Proving one’s innocence of a crime is a potentially insurmountable task — one Davis was unable to meet. But while Davis was unable to “prove” his innocence, he established considerable doubts as to his guilt, prompting the judge to acknowledge that the state’s case against him was “not ironclad
I think this is a key point that Barr makes:
[quote]I am a longtime supporter of the death penalty. I make no judgment as to whether Davis is guilty or innocent. And surely the citizens of Savannah and the state of Georgia want justice served on behalf of Officer MacPhail.
But imposing an irreversible sentence of death on the skimpiest of evidence will not serve the interest of justice. By granting clemency, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will adhere to the most sacred principles of American jurisprudence, and will keep a man from being executed when we cannot be assured of his guilt. [/quote]
@ Dr. Wu… I do not retract one word I wrote… you questioned reliability of witnesses… I said nothing about that, one way or the other… what I said was, IF someone (this case or any other) is innocent, if they are ‘wrongfully’ convicted, it doesn’t matter a whole lot what their sentence is… the conviction and punishment is WRONG.
BTW, I find it interesting to note that some say (and I do not necessarily disagree), that life in prison w/o possibility of parole is less expensive than the death penalty… yet, several contributors to this blog would prefer a 20 year old who is found guilty of heinous crimes to NOT receive a death sentence, and thus pay for food, housing, clothing, medical, dental, psychological services, etc., etc., until they die of (hopefully) a ripe age of 100, at the expense of taxpayers, yet question whether we can afford to pay lifetime benefits for pensions (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and or retiree medical/dental benefits, for PRODUCTIVE public employees who serve 25-45 years working on behalf of the public. What am I missing?
{i]”Bob Barr, the former Prosecutor and Republican Congressman …[/i]
… has an odd history of changing his positions and philosophy. I think Barr is a smart and comes across as a sincere and decent person. Yet he may be the most extreme case of a career politician whose positions are hard to predict because they are likely not the same views he held a few years ago, and those he held a few years ago differ from those he held some years before that.
Rich
Why by firing squad ?
Bullets are inexpensive?
[i]”Why by firing squad?”[/i]
A few reasons:
1. It’s brutal, but not overly so, like the guillotine, where the person’s head falls off. I think executing someone is a very serious business, and we ought never make it ordinary, like giving someone a shot or filling a chamber with gas;
2. It is a very fast and reliable method. Unlike gas, electricity or an injection, which often will fail, a volley of shots fired by marksmen to the chest from high-powered rifles always does the job immediately. I have read that hanging is also unreliable. It tortures the hanged and he can live for 10 minutes after the floor drops out;
3. It is the easiest method to never know who fired the fatal shot. With electricity or gas or an injection, one person has to serve the role as executioner. But with a firing squad, all shooters but one can fire blanks. So no one would ever know who the actual executioner was; and
4. The person executed does not see it coming. They place a blinder-hood over the man’s head. He is left tied up in a special chair. And before he can think too much about anything, the shots are fired by expert marksmen.
I never gave this much thought until I read about the execution of Gary Gilmore, who chose death by firing squad. It struck me as barbaric. But then I read an analysis of all methods which were legal in the U.S. and firing squad struck me as the least “cruel and unusual” for the reasons laid out above. Additionally, the wife of a friend of mine is a TV reporter. She told me about witnessing a couple of executions at San Quentin, each of which were done by lethal injection. She said “it seemed too antiseptic” and as if it was a regular medical procedure. She also added that it struck her as odd that a medical doctor, who was sworn to “first do no harm,” was required to execute a murderer.
[i]”Why by firing squad?”[/i]
A few reasons:
1. It’s brutal, but not overly so, like the guillotine, where the person’s head falls off. I think executing someone is a very serious business, and we ought never make it ordinary, like giving someone a shot or filling a chamber with gas;
2. It is a very fast and reliable method. Unlike gas, electricity or an injection, which often will fail, a volley of shots fired by marksmen to the chest from high-powered rifles always does the job immediately. I have read that hanging is also unreliable. It tortures the hanged and he can live for 10 minutes after the floor drops out;
3. It is the easiest method to never know who fired the fatal shot. With electricity or gas or an injection, one person has to serve the role as executioner. But with a firing squad, all shooters but one can fire blanks. So no one would ever know who the actual executioner was; and
4. The person executed does not see it coming. They place a blinder-hood over the man’s head. He is left tied up in a special chair. And before he can think too much about anything, the shots are fired by expert marksmen.
I never gave this much thought until I read about the execution of Gary Gilmore, who chose death by firing squad. It struck me as barbaric. But then I read an analysis of all methods which were legal in the U.S. and firing squad struck me as the least “cruel and unusual” for the reasons laid out above. Additionally, the wife of a friend of mine is a TV reporter. She told me about witnessing a couple of executions at San Quentin, each of which were done by lethal injection. She said “it seemed too antiseptic” and as if it was a regular medical procedure. She also added that it struck her as odd that a medical doctor, who was sworn to “first do no harm,” was required to execute a murderer.
It is obvious to me that the majority of the commentators have never been on the receiving end of the legal system. The system is very imperfect, and full of errors all along the way. On both sides evidence is left out, covered up, witnesses not investigated, etc, etc. It has become about winning instead of the search for the truth.
Courts are political – Politicians write the laws, Judges are elected, DA’s are elected. Political lobby groups or unions make huge campaign contributions to get their person elected. Why do we see this with senators and presidents but close our eyes to the legal system? It is not above human mistakes and human greed, etc. We need a reality check.
It is obvious to me that the majority of the commentators have never been on the receiving end of the legal system. The system is very imperfect, and full of errors all along the way. On both sides evidence is left out, covered up, witnesses not investigated, etc, etc. It has become about winning instead of the search for the truth.
Courts are political – Politicians write the laws, Judges are elected, DA’s are elected. Political lobby groups or unions make huge campaign contributions to get their person elected. Why do we see this with senators and presidents but close our eyes to the legal system? It is not above human mistakes and human greed, etc. We need a reality check.
[quote]They note, “Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis for the murder of an off-duty police officer has done little to resolve the debate over his guilt that captured the attention of thousands worldwide, including a former president and the pope.”[/quote]
[quote]Bob Barr, the former Prosecutor and Republican Congressman published an op-ed asking for clemency. [/quote]
President Carter – cozies up to leaders of countries with the worst human rights violations in the world, while criticizing his the U.S. for human rights violations.
Pope – turns a blind eye to/covers up pedophilia within the Catholic Church against young defenseless and naive alter boys (children).
Senator Bob Barr (R) – spoke before a white supremacist group Council for Conservative Americans (I think that is the name) as he self-righteously called for the impeachment of President Clinton; very squirrelly politician… I’ve seen him on other issues that make me downright queasy…
Based on links given, the Troy Davis case is yet another poor example to use in arguing against the death penalty. Better to use cases like that of Anthony Graves, whose case was so egregious, it was overturned on appeal, and the new Texas prosecutor assigned to retry the case had it dismissed for lack of evidence. The real killer was found, but named Anthony Graves, someone whose name he had heard on the street the day of the crime. The real killer recanted numerous times, telling authorities Anthony Graves had nothing to do w the crime, all the way up until his execution. The prosecutor in the case failed to divulge exculpatory evidence and all sorts of other wrongdoing.
The new prosecutor assigned to the case was appalled. Yet the Texas State Bar refused to have the former prosecutor, who has since retired, disbarred. The happy ending to this story is that after 18 years, Anthony Graves was freed, was able to hug his two grown up children, and now works for the Public Defenders Office as an investigator to make sure nothing happens to others like what happened to him. If you hear him speak, he is such a sweetie – just the salt of the earth. He didn’t seem to let prison harden his perspective in a sense – he just turned lemons into lemonade.
After a huge fight, the state of Texas was forced to fork over $1.4 million dollars to Anthony Graves, in compensation for wrongful imprisonment – just icing on the cake in a case of true justice… which was a long time coming!
[quote]They note, “Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis for the murder of an off-duty police officer has done little to resolve the debate over his guilt that captured the attention of thousands worldwide, including a former president and the pope.”[/quote]
[quote]Bob Barr, the former Prosecutor and Republican Congressman published an op-ed asking for clemency. [/quote]
President Carter – cozies up to leaders of countries with the worst human rights violations in the world, while criticizing his the U.S. for human rights violations.
Pope – turns a blind eye to/covers up pedophilia within the Catholic Church against young defenseless and naive alter boys (children).
Senator Bob Barr (R) – spoke before a white supremacist group Council for Conservative Americans (I think that is the name) as he self-righteously called for the impeachment of President Clinton; very squirrelly politician… I’ve seen him on other issues that make me downright queasy…
Based on links given, the Troy Davis case is yet another poor example to use in arguing against the death penalty. Better to use cases like that of Anthony Graves, whose case was so egregious, it was overturned on appeal, and the new Texas prosecutor assigned to retry the case had it dismissed for lack of evidence. The real killer was found, but named Anthony Graves, someone whose name he had heard on the street the day of the crime. The real killer recanted numerous times, telling authorities Anthony Graves had nothing to do w the crime, all the way up until his execution. The prosecutor in the case failed to divulge exculpatory evidence and all sorts of other wrongdoing.
The new prosecutor assigned to the case was appalled. Yet the Texas State Bar refused to have the former prosecutor, who has since retired, disbarred. The happy ending to this story is that after 18 years, Anthony Graves was freed, was able to hug his two grown up children, and now works for the Public Defenders Office as an investigator to make sure nothing happens to others like what happened to him. If you hear him speak, he is such a sweetie – just the salt of the earth. He didn’t seem to let prison harden his perspective in a sense – he just turned lemons into lemonade.
After a huge fight, the state of Texas was forced to fork over $1.4 million dollars to Anthony Graves, in compensation for wrongful imprisonment – just icing on the cake in a case of true justice… which was a long time coming!
[b]Cost of Life Without Parole: Cases [/b]
Equivalent To Death Penalty Cases
1. $34,200/year (1) for 50 years (2), at
a 2% (3) annual cost increase, plus
$75,000 (4) for trial & appeals = $3.01 million
2. Same, except 3% (3) = $4.04 million
3. Same, except 4% (3) = $5.53 million
[b] Cost of Death Penalty Cases [/b]
$60,000/year (1) for 6 years (5), at
a 2% (3) annual cost increase, plus = $1.88 million
$1.5 million (4) for trial & appeals
Same, except 3% (3) = $1.89 million
Same, except 4% (3) = $1.91 million
[b]Cost of Life Without Parole: Cases [/b]
Equivalent To Death Penalty Cases
1. $34,200/year (1) for 50 years (2), at
a 2% (3) annual cost increase, plus
$75,000 (4) for trial & appeals = $3.01 million
2. Same, except 3% (3) = $4.04 million
3. Same, except 4% (3) = $5.53 million
[b] Cost of Death Penalty Cases [/b]
$60,000/year (1) for 6 years (5), at
a 2% (3) annual cost increase, plus = $1.88 million
$1.5 million (4) for trial & appeals
Same, except 3% (3) = $1.89 million
Same, except 4% (3) = $1.91 million
ERM
With regard to the positions of President Carter, the pope, and Senator Barr, do you not believe it is possible for individuals to be right on one issue and wrong on others. I really don’t understand your thinking here.
I also think that everyone agrees that the legal and penal systems will never be perfect ( unless you believe Rick Perry about the infallibility
of the system in Texas ) so what this really comes down to is a difference in preference. Those of us who oppose the death penalty would rather see guilty murderers sentenced to life in prison than to take any chance of inadvertently executing some one who is in fact innocent.
Proponents of the death penalty would prefer to see the occasional execution of the innocent than to allow convicted murderers to remain alive.
ERM
With regard to the positions of President Carter, the pope, and Senator Barr, do you not believe it is possible for individuals to be right on one issue and wrong on others. I really don’t understand your thinking here.
I also think that everyone agrees that the legal and penal systems will never be perfect ( unless you believe Rick Perry about the infallibility
of the system in Texas ) so what this really comes down to is a difference in preference. Those of us who oppose the death penalty would rather see guilty murderers sentenced to life in prison than to take any chance of inadvertently executing some one who is in fact innocent.
Proponents of the death penalty would prefer to see the occasional execution of the innocent than to allow convicted murderers to remain alive.
Rich
I am truly puzzled by what you consider the appropriate degree of brutality for an execution. You seem to feel that the guillotine is too brutal.
How so? Maybe too upsetting for the witnesses.? How about stoning ? Also too barbaric ? And why should the participants in an execution
Be spared from knowing which fired the lethal bullet ? If they believe in execution enough to participate, why should they not have to live with the consequences of their actions ? Same with lethal injection, if the doctor believes enough in it to participate, why worry about his or her vows when they clearly do not.
However I found the most revealing part of your post to be the quote of your friends wife, “it seemed too antiseptic”. What should it seem ?
Maybe just brutal enough to satisfy a sadistic urge for revenge but not so gory as to turn the observers stomach?
What I find barbaric is that we as a society are willing to risk the execution of innocents, which has been shown incontrovertibly to be a real risk, than to give up our desire for revenge, and yes, apparently, just the right degree of brutality.
Rich
I am truly puzzled by what you consider the appropriate degree of brutality for an execution. You seem to feel that the guillotine is too brutal.
How so? Maybe too upsetting for the witnesses.? How about stoning ? Also too barbaric ? And why should the participants in an execution
Be spared from knowing which fired the lethal bullet ? If they believe in execution enough to participate, why should they not have to live with the consequences of their actions ? Same with lethal injection, if the doctor believes enough in it to participate, why worry about his or her vows when they clearly do not.
However I found the most revealing part of your post to be the quote of your friends wife, “it seemed too antiseptic”. What should it seem ?
Maybe just brutal enough to satisfy a sadistic urge for revenge but not so gory as to turn the observers stomach?
What I find barbaric is that we as a society are willing to risk the execution of innocents, which has been shown incontrovertibly to be a real risk, than to give up our desire for revenge, and yes, apparently, just the right degree of brutality.
[i]”How about stoning?”[/i]
Meds, this “question” makes me realize you have no interest in an honest discussion. Coming from you and how you like to preach rather than discuss or debate, I am not surprised.
It is clear to me, alas, that you simply want to make yourself feel superior to me, because you think of yourself as “modern” by opposing executions and you think of me as barbaric for supporting them in cases of murder with malice.
I explained myself perfectly clearly with regard to the fact that I think the method of execution needs to be swift and sure. Stoning is neither.
My intent is not to kill a man bit by bit. It is to execute him in such a way that with certainty he dies immediately and that the method of death is not a medical procedure, not antiseptic. While it is the case the the guillotine meets the same standard, it fails in two respects as I described above: yes, having someone’s head roll off is too horrific for society at large in my opinion; and it lacks the benefits of never knowing who was the actual executioner.
[i]”why should the participants in an execution be spared from knowing [s]which[/s] [b]who[/b] fired the lethal bullet?”[/i]
Two reasons, traditionally: one, to avoid retribution; and two, so that the executioner becomes the state, not the person whose job it is to pull the trigger.
It’s not really a matter of conscientiousness. I personally would never want that job. However, others volunteer for it. No one certainly should be compelled to serve as an executioner.
[i]”If they believe in execution enough to participate, why should they not have to live with the consequences of their actions?”[/i]
I have never suggested otherwise. Why are you so sanctimonious?
[i]”Same with lethal injection, if the doctor believes enough in it to participate, why worry about his or her vows when they clearly do not.”[/i]
A medical doctor is different in my opinion, because unlike a marksman who was trained to kill with a gun, doctors take an oath to “first do no harm.”
[i]However I found the most revealing part of your post to be the quote of your friends wife, “it seemed too antiseptic”. What should it seem?[/i]
More of your usual self-piety? I simply explained what her view was, and that struck me as compelling.
[i]”Maybe just brutal enough to satisfy a sadistic urge for revenge but not so gory as to turn the observers stomach?”[/i]
Jeez, Meds, you cannot hide your feelings of superiority, can you?
[i]”What I find barbaric is that we as a society are willing to risk the execution of innocents, which has been shown incontrovertibly to be a real risk, than to give up our desire for revenge, and yes, apparently, just the right degree of brutality.”[/i]
You apparently have a very high opinion of yourself. So you knock others in order to keep that opinion going. You otherwise ignore every argument they make.
Yes, execution is largely an act of vengeance. No one denies that. It also, if done swiftly, has the advantage of convincing other would be killers to think twice. But mostly, it is fair: you decide to murder, then you get murdered.
The idea that a convicted murderer should have a lifetime of the taxpayers giving him shelter, feeding him three meals a day, paying for his free medical and dental care and the chance for 30-80 years to just live is unequal to his crime. The victim never gets any of those benefits. Neither should the killer.
[i]”How about stoning?”[/i]
Meds, this “question” makes me realize you have no interest in an honest discussion. Coming from you and how you like to preach rather than discuss or debate, I am not surprised.
It is clear to me, alas, that you simply want to make yourself feel superior to me, because you think of yourself as “modern” by opposing executions and you think of me as barbaric for supporting them in cases of murder with malice.
I explained myself perfectly clearly with regard to the fact that I think the method of execution needs to be swift and sure. Stoning is neither.
My intent is not to kill a man bit by bit. It is to execute him in such a way that with certainty he dies immediately and that the method of death is not a medical procedure, not antiseptic. While it is the case the the guillotine meets the same standard, it fails in two respects as I described above: yes, having someone’s head roll off is too horrific for society at large in my opinion; and it lacks the benefits of never knowing who was the actual executioner.
[i]”why should the participants in an execution be spared from knowing [s]which[/s] [b]who[/b] fired the lethal bullet?”[/i]
Two reasons, traditionally: one, to avoid retribution; and two, so that the executioner becomes the state, not the person whose job it is to pull the trigger.
It’s not really a matter of conscientiousness. I personally would never want that job. However, others volunteer for it. No one certainly should be compelled to serve as an executioner.
[i]”If they believe in execution enough to participate, why should they not have to live with the consequences of their actions?”[/i]
I have never suggested otherwise. Why are you so sanctimonious?
[i]”Same with lethal injection, if the doctor believes enough in it to participate, why worry about his or her vows when they clearly do not.”[/i]
A medical doctor is different in my opinion, because unlike a marksman who was trained to kill with a gun, doctors take an oath to “first do no harm.”
[i]However I found the most revealing part of your post to be the quote of your friends wife, “it seemed too antiseptic”. What should it seem?[/i]
More of your usual self-piety? I simply explained what her view was, and that struck me as compelling.
[i]”Maybe just brutal enough to satisfy a sadistic urge for revenge but not so gory as to turn the observers stomach?”[/i]
Jeez, Meds, you cannot hide your feelings of superiority, can you?
[i]”What I find barbaric is that we as a society are willing to risk the execution of innocents, which has been shown incontrovertibly to be a real risk, than to give up our desire for revenge, and yes, apparently, just the right degree of brutality.”[/i]
You apparently have a very high opinion of yourself. So you knock others in order to keep that opinion going. You otherwise ignore every argument they make.
Yes, execution is largely an act of vengeance. No one denies that. It also, if done swiftly, has the advantage of convincing other would be killers to think twice. But mostly, it is fair: you decide to murder, then you get murdered.
The idea that a convicted murderer should have a lifetime of the taxpayers giving him shelter, feeding him three meals a day, paying for his free medical and dental care and the chance for 30-80 years to just live is unequal to his crime. The victim never gets any of those benefits. Neither should the killer.
Rich
It is not myself that I consider superior. However, I do believe that humans are fallible enough not to be entrusted with life and death decisions over others. It is the respect for life that I consider superior than the desire for revenge. It is the idea that has value. Do you not believe that your position is superior to mine ? Can you not hold that belief without feeling superior to me as an individual? and if you can, why would you not believe the same of me.
Rich
It is not myself that I consider superior. However, I do believe that humans are fallible enough not to be entrusted with life and death decisions over others. It is the respect for life that I consider superior than the desire for revenge. It is the idea that has value. Do you not believe that your position is superior to mine ? Can you not hold that belief without feeling superior to me as an individual? and if you can, why would you not believe the same of me.
[quote]With regard to the positions of President Carter, the pope, and Senator Barr, do you not believe it is possible for individuals to be right on one issue and wrong on others. I really don’t understand your thinking here.
I also think that everyone agrees that the legal and penal systems will never be perfect ( unless you believe Rick Perry about the infallibility of the system in Texas ) so what this really comes down to is a difference in preference. Those of us who oppose the death penalty would rather see guilty murderers sentenced to life in prison than to take any chance of inadvertently executing some one who is in fact innocent. Proponents of the death penalty would prefer to see the occasional execution of the innocent than to allow convicted murderers to remain alive.[/quote]
I am opposed to the death penalty. But frankly, I think the wrong people/examples are being used to justify opposition to the death penalty, and it is not helping this cause. To use President Carter, the Pope or Senator Bob Barr as examples of good advocates against the death penalty, when they themselves don’t show good judgment, is foolish IMO. How much credibility to they lend to this cause? NONE.
To your second comment, systems are not perfect because people are involved in these systems. “To err is human” and is the normal course of events. But we are going way beyond “inadvertent error” into the realm of prosecutorial misconduct in regard to the imposition of the death penalty, as in the Anthony Graves case. With virtually no consequences to the perpetrators of that prosecutorial misconduct. This is why I am so opposed to the death penalty. IMHO it is clear that in some states/counties/boroughs/parishes, there are prosecutors out there w/o integrity, who will win cases at any/all costs, even if they have to make up/hide evidence. This goes on, bc there are not sufficient mechanisms in place so that there are repercussions for prosecutorial wrongdoing.
And I do not believe for one second that proponents of the death penalty would prefer an occasional innocent be put to death rather than allow a convicted murderer to remain alive. That is too broad/arrogant a brush to paint; I very much doubt that is their thinking at all. My guess is that those who are proponents of the death penalty honestly if naively believe there are enough safety nets in place that will ensure the innocent will go free. Anthony Graves was someone who was absolutely certain he would be absolved of guilt. Ultimately he was right. But other innocents probably have not been so lucky.
As to Rich Rifkin’s comments about using a firing squad to carry out the death penalty (which I am opposed to bc of the problems of possible mistake/prosecutorial misconduct), I happen to absolutely agree. I think the firing squad is probably one of the most humane and cheapest ways to execute a person, including the method by which the actual executioner will not be known. If you think death by lethal injection is better, if you knew the details, you would stop thinking it was in any way humane.
[quote]With regard to the positions of President Carter, the pope, and Senator Barr, do you not believe it is possible for individuals to be right on one issue and wrong on others. I really don’t understand your thinking here.
I also think that everyone agrees that the legal and penal systems will never be perfect ( unless you believe Rick Perry about the infallibility of the system in Texas ) so what this really comes down to is a difference in preference. Those of us who oppose the death penalty would rather see guilty murderers sentenced to life in prison than to take any chance of inadvertently executing some one who is in fact innocent. Proponents of the death penalty would prefer to see the occasional execution of the innocent than to allow convicted murderers to remain alive.[/quote]
I am opposed to the death penalty. But frankly, I think the wrong people/examples are being used to justify opposition to the death penalty, and it is not helping this cause. To use President Carter, the Pope or Senator Bob Barr as examples of good advocates against the death penalty, when they themselves don’t show good judgment, is foolish IMO. How much credibility to they lend to this cause? NONE.
To your second comment, systems are not perfect because people are involved in these systems. “To err is human” and is the normal course of events. But we are going way beyond “inadvertent error” into the realm of prosecutorial misconduct in regard to the imposition of the death penalty, as in the Anthony Graves case. With virtually no consequences to the perpetrators of that prosecutorial misconduct. This is why I am so opposed to the death penalty. IMHO it is clear that in some states/counties/boroughs/parishes, there are prosecutors out there w/o integrity, who will win cases at any/all costs, even if they have to make up/hide evidence. This goes on, bc there are not sufficient mechanisms in place so that there are repercussions for prosecutorial wrongdoing.
And I do not believe for one second that proponents of the death penalty would prefer an occasional innocent be put to death rather than allow a convicted murderer to remain alive. That is too broad/arrogant a brush to paint; I very much doubt that is their thinking at all. My guess is that those who are proponents of the death penalty honestly if naively believe there are enough safety nets in place that will ensure the innocent will go free. Anthony Graves was someone who was absolutely certain he would be absolved of guilt. Ultimately he was right. But other innocents probably have not been so lucky.
As to Rich Rifkin’s comments about using a firing squad to carry out the death penalty (which I am opposed to bc of the problems of possible mistake/prosecutorial misconduct), I happen to absolutely agree. I think the firing squad is probably one of the most humane and cheapest ways to execute a person, including the method by which the actual executioner will not be known. If you think death by lethal injection is better, if you knew the details, you would stop thinking it was in any way humane.
Rich,
“2. It is a very fast and reliable method. Unlike gas, electricity or an injection, which often will fail, a volley of shots fired by marksmen to the chest from high-powered rifles always does the job immediately.
3. It is the easiest method to never know who fired the fatal shot. With electricity or gas or an injection, one person has to serve the role as executioner. But with a firing squad, all shooters but one can fire blanks. So no one would ever know who the actual executioner was;”
How many shots would each shooter fire? When you wrote, “volley of shots by marksmen…” are you actually referring to the multiple shots fired by the one marksman who is not firing blanks?
The liberal media has been lying and telling half-truths about death penalty cases for years. Unless people personally review trial transcripts in death penalty cases, they won’t know the truth, because the media has no motive to tell them the truth. Many hear just enough to make them get emotional and then they shut down their rational minds. Instead, I’m going to tell some of the truths about the Davis case and paraphrase some articles researched and written by journalists driven by the truly journalistic ethic of reporting facts rather than driven by emotion and propagating propaganda.
It’s nearly impossible to receive a death sentence these days unless you do something really over the top and there’s lots of evidence. In August of 1989, Troy Davis clearly earned the death sentence he drew. The evidence was plentiful and sound then, and remained so on the day he paid for his crimes.
After hearing 34 witnesses for the state (not just nine as the liberal media would have you think) and six witnesses for the defense, a jury of seven blacks and five whites convicted Davis of the cold-blooded murder of Officer Mark MacPhail’s murder, as well as various other crimes. Two days later, the jury sentenced Davis to death.
The liberal press and the conscienceless (any lie is permissible in the interest of their better good) death penalty opponents scream that there was no “physical evidence” connecting Davis to the crimes that night. What “physical evidence” were they expecting? Davis shot Officer MacPhail in public, in a parking lot. Not an environment where physical evidence of the type death penalty opponents say is absent — DNA — is ever likely to be left or found. However, there was other “physical evidence” (conveniently forgotten by death penalty opponents): shell casings from the MacPhail shooting that matched casings from another earlier shooting that was, without any doubt, Davis’ doing. The casings were a perfect match. Unassailable “physical evidence.”
Since the shooting of Officer MacPhail; occurred in a busy parking lot, the bulk of the evidence against Davis was eyewitness testimony. Not just one eyewitness though, but many. Several of the eyewitnesses knew Davis personally. And the eyewitness testimony established the following:
Two tall, young black men were harassing a vagrant in the Burger King parking lot, one in a yellow shirt and the other in a white Batman shirt. The one in the white shirt used a brown revolver to pistol-whip the vagrant. When a cop yelled at them to stop, the man in the white shirt ran, then wheeled around and shot the cop, walked over to his body and shot him again, smiling.
Some eyewitnesses described the shooter as wearing a white shirt, some said it was a white shirt with writing, and some identified it specifically as a white Batman shirt. Not one witness said the man in the yellow shirt pistol-whipped the vagrant or shot the cop.
—–Cont’d—–
—–Cont’d from above—–
Several of Davis’ friends testified — without recantation — that he was the one in a white shirt. Several eyewitnesses, both acquaintances and strangers, specifically identified Davis as the one who shot Officer MacPhail. However, the liberal media tries to make a big deal of the report that seven of the nine (wrong — liberal media falsehood) witnesses against Davis at trial recanted. The state presented 34 witnesses against Davis, not nine. (Part of the unrepentant lying by the liberal media.)
Among the witnesses who did not recant a word of their testimony against Davis were three members of the Air Force, who saw the shooting from their van in the Burger King drive-in lane. The airman who saw events clearly enough to positively identify Davis as the shooter explained on cross-examination, “You don’t forget someone that stands over and shoots someone.”
Before discussing the supposed recantations, it should be understood that many jurists consider recanted testimony the least believable evidence since it proves only that defense lawyers managed to pressure some witnesses to alter their testimony, in this case, conveniently after the trial has ended. Even criminal lobbyist Justice William Brennan ridiculed post-trial recanting.
Three alleged recantations were from friends of Davis, making minor or completely unbelievable modifications to their trial testimony. For example, one said he was no longer sure he saw Davis shoot the cop, even though he was five feet away at the time. His remaining testimony still implicated Davis.
One alleged recantation, from the vagrant’s girlfriend (since deceased), wasn’t a recantation at all, but rather reiterated all relevant parts of her trial testimony, which included a direct identification of Davis as the shooter.
Only two of the seven alleged “recantations” (out of 34 witnesses) actually recanted anything of value — and those two affidavits were discounted by the court because Davis refused to allow the affiants to testify at the post-trial evidentiary hearing, even though one was seated right outside the courtroom, waiting to appear.
The court specifically warned Davis that his refusal to call his only two genuinely recanting witnesses would make their affidavits worthless. But Davis still refused to call them — suggesting, as the court said, that their lawyer-drafted affidavits would not have held up under cross-examination.
In the end more than a dozen courts looked at Davis’ case and refused to overturn his death sentence. He was so easily provably guilty that arguing reasonable doubt about his guilt, especially based on recantations, as why we shouldn’t have executed him is just plain laughable and trying to make an empty, emotional plea appear to have rational thought behind it.
Elaine
You are right. I did paint with too broad a brush when I implied that all proponents would favor an occasional execution of an innocent over life without parole however I believe that this does apply to some and was agreed with in this regard by one proponent of the death penalty in a previous post on this blog. There is however another consideration. That is I believe that it is important to continue to reevaluate your beliefs in light of new information. If you become aware that the system is less perfect than you had previously believed, then I think it is incumbent upon you to change your views accordingly. I believe that there is now more than enough evidence in terms of cases of mistaken identification, DNA exonerations, prosecutorial or witness or juror misconduct, etc. to convince anyone who is willing to rethink their belief that our system is too flawed to justify the taking of a life.
As for the means of execution, I do not believe that this could not be made a more humane process. Just because the sequence used now for lethal injection may not be humane now, does not mean it could not be made so. Anyone who has ever undergone general anesthesia is aware that one can be rendered completely unconscious painlessly. I am sure that most anesthesiologists, for that matter, most surgeons, could then calculate a lethal preparation which could be given without the condemned regaining consciousness. If one is concerned about knowing who actually performed the lethal injection, rig input into several ports and have several people inject at the same time. The concept is no more complicated than loading blanks.
However, none of this is relevant to my underlying opposition to the death penalty which is moral and admittedly puts me squarely in the minority in this country. I do not believe in the death penalty because I do not believe in the human right to take the life of another human. I do not believe it is right whether one person makes the decision or whether 12 people make the decision. The fact that it is legal in our country is not proof of it’s morality, any more than stoning (the mention of which caused Rich to believe I am hubristic) which is one legal method of execution under Sharia law makes that a moral act. One of the kindest women I have ever met in my life was raised as a fundamentalist Muslim and when we were discussing stoning for adultery, she defended the practice truly believing it to be the will of Allah. I respectfully disagree and I also respectfully disagree with those who choose to defend their belief in capital punishment based on Christian faith, or any other faith for that matter. It is precisely because I am aware of my own imperfections that I do not feel that I, or any other human being, is qualified to ” cast the first stone” or shoot the live bullet, or inject the lethal syringe.
Andrew T
Setting aside the Davis case entirely, if you hold that the defense can intimidate witnesses into falsely recanting previous testimony, could it not also be true that prosecutors could intimidate witnesses into falsely testifying initially?
As for the suggestion from the equally biased conservative press that witnesses could be pressured into false recantation by gangs, why could this not equally be true of gangs pressuring witnesses into falsely identifying an innocent initially to protect a gang member ?
Obviously any of these scenarios is a possibility and calls into doubt the whole reliance on eye witness testimony. This alone should be enough to warrant abandonment of the death penalty in cases dependent on eyewitness identification since it is not revocable if an error is subsequently detected.
Andrew T, you’re wasting your time trying to convince some of these liberals that Davis deserved the death penalty. It doesn’t matter how many facts you throw at them they will always find some way to try and justify their case that he might have been innocent. I’ll bet they still think OJ didn’t do it.
Andrew T, I also read somewhere that the guy in the yellow t-shirt, Coles, couldn’t possibly had shot MacPhail because he was standing behind him at the time of the shooting. MacPhail was shot in the stomach and the face, unless of course he was able to curve the bullets. But I’m sure some here will remind us of the Anjolina Jolie movie “Wanted” where she was able to do just that. Coles was not subpoenaed by the defense.
rusty49
If you believe (as I think is most likely) that OJ was guilty, then our justice system was fallible in his case. Why would you then presume that everyone who is convicted is truly guilty ?
No, I know there are some cases that get overturned with good cause, but not the Troy Davis case. The evidence was overwhelming, he deserved to die. It’s cases like this where bleeding hearts cry foul that just makes the rest of us shake our heads in amazement.
Medwoman, I’m really curious, did you or do you now think that OJ did it?
rusty49
To be perfectly honest, at the time, based on very limited information, I thought he was guilty. But I was not following closely and therefore really had no right to formulate an opinion. Unfortunately, this is one of the difficulties with “the court of public opinion”. People regardless of political persuasion tend to get their news from sources that share their bias and make their decisions based on that information. Hardly a recipe for objectivity. Since I no longer remember much of the little I knew about the case then, I would be even less qualified to make a judgement now.
Andrew T.
Glad to see you bring in some facts to balance out the mainstream media story; the story that I saw on the mainstream media indeed chose not to present any of this; a very unbalanced account.
I don’t pretend to know whether the accused was in fact guilty; but the facts Andrew presented help renew my faith in the jury verdict in this particular case; that indeed the weight of evidence against the accused may have been beyond a reasonable doubt; and later recantations by a minority of witnesses (including some of the convicts friends) themselves may not have unquestionable credulity.
medwoman,
I respect your moral position on the death penalty, and am actually glad you have this view. I would rather see you as a physician than a physician who would volunteer to do a lethal injection!
At the same time; I have a different moral viewpoint that perhaps other proponents of the death penalty have.
It is a fundamental difference in philosophy that holds people to account for the actions they take. When a person murders another (or contracts it to another), at that moment he forfeits his own life. For me, it is something akin to honorably balancing the accounts. It upholds a view that each person is responsible for his own actions, a man has free will and to be respected as a man he must acknowledge this responsibility; rather than to treat him like an animal who actions are entirely determined by his own impulses and the environment. If civilization goes down this route, we wind up turning civilization into a zoo. That said, it must be acknowledged that no person is infinitely strong, and the environment can be a contributing factor; however ultimately responsibility must be assigned to the free will of each person.
All this said; as the law currently works I don’t know if I can support the death penalty because of the real risk of executing an innocent man: if somehow an additional category of guilt; not just ‘guilty beyond a reasonable doubt’, but ‘guilty beyond ANY doubt’ was applicable; in this case I would support the death penalty.
jimt
Your post poses an interesting question for me. Since you believe that “at that moment he forfeits his own life” and that “it is something akin to honorably balancing the accounts” then surelly you must see this as a just action. If that is the case, then why would you “rather see me as a physician than a “physician who would volunteer to do a lethal injection”. If execution is truly a moral solution, then enacting it would also be moral action, wouldn’t it ? The comment that I have heard quoted in response to this question is that physicians have taken an oath to “first do no harm” but this presupposes that a doctor patient relationship has been established. So my question is, if it is moral to execute, why not a physician ?
jimt
Another couple of genuine questions which may sound provocative, but I do not know how to ask other than straight forwardly.
1) Rich has said that he supports the death penalty, but would not volunteer to be the executioner. Would you volunteer and if not, why nit ?
2) If you see justice as a matter of honorably balancing the accounts then it would seem to me a logical extension of this thought process that the correct response to rape would be to rape that individual, the correct response to torture would be torture, and yet I doubt that you, or I, or anyone else who posts here would support these as appropriate sanctions. So what makes the death penalty different in your view?
3) Finally, we agree completely on personal accountability. But I do not believe that execution imposes accountability. One way of viewing death is liberation from the challenges of this life. Execution means that the individual is irrevocably rendered unable to make any form of reparation or restitution if guilty and if innocent is unjustly deprived of life, a lose lose situation.
[quote]As for the means of execution, I do not believe that this could not be made a more humane process. Just because the sequence used now for lethal injection may not be humane now, does not mean it could not be made so. [/quote]
It is certainly not a humane method, and it goes way beyond just the injection itself. Too graphic to put on this blog. Just trust me on this – the gory details were described on a documentary.
Very thought provoking discussion, and I respect all views. I used to be a proponent of the death penalty, until I received information of some prosecutorial misconduct, and just plain inadvertent human error. It caused me to change my mind – not so much for moral reasons with regard to the death penalty, but because the system is just too imperfect. I have no difficulty with the idea of executing the likes of serial killer Ted Bundy for instance.
That said, it is not possible to have a conviction beyond ANY DOUBT. Any “reasonable” doubt is probably as good a standard as can be had. It is the inherent imperfection built into the system that is the problem, from prosecutorial misconduct, misidentification, imperfect science, etc. The errors can be completely inadvertent. I have before referred to a case in which the actual perp and the wrongly convicted defendant looked exactly alike, from their ethnicity right down to their goatee – they could have been identical twins. Their pictures were published in the newspaper side by side. It was uncanny. The system is not perfect, therefore the final punishment should not be perfect – death without the possibility of correction.
[i]”How many shots would each shooter fire? When you wrote, “volley of shots by marksmen…” are you actually referring to the multiple shots fired by the one marksman who is not firing blanks?”[/i]
I am not a gun expert. So I do not know the answer to this question. However, I heard one of the marksmen (it was on 60 Minutes or 20/20 many years ago) who worked the Gary Gilmore case say that each shooter emptied “a full clip.” I am not sure how many shots that is. I assume some clips are larger than others. He implied–or perhaps I inferred–that he had no idea whether his gun was firing blanks or firing live rounds.
Meds: [i]”As for the means of execution, I do not believe that this could not be made a more humane process.”[/i]
This strikes me as untruthful.
You think it is equally humane or inhumane to kill someone swiftly and surely–as a firing squad does–than say slowly suffocating someone? Or stoning the person such that he dies bit by bit over 10 to 12 hours as his bones break and his internal organs begin to bleed?
Come now. You surely don’t believe what you said above.
[i]”1) Rich has said that he supports the death penalty, but would not volunteer to be the executioner. Would you volunteer and if not, why nit?”[/i]
If you are accusing me of being a hypocrite, calling for the death penalty in some cases but not willing to serve on the firing squad, I plead guilty.
I make the same plea when it comes to eating beef. I would not–at this point in my life–kill a cow or a steer. But I don’t have a problem cooking or eating their flesh or wearing leather shoes and a leather belt. (I don’t own a leather jacket, but would have no problem wearing one.) I think that makes me a hypocrite. I suspect most meat-eaters in modern society, who have not grown up on farms and have never had to slaughter animals for meat, would not want to do so.
In a hypothetical circumstance, where I thought I needed animal flesh for protein, I would try to catch a fish. I have done that plenty of times and feel no sorrow for the creature–though I would feel bad if I killed a fish and did not use its parts efficiently. I could also kill a snake for meat. However, barring desperation, I would rather not kill any bird or any land or sea mammal.
Is that a perfect attitude? I don’t think so. But it is my honest view.
Rich
I absolutely do believe what I said.
My comment about being able to be made more humane was specific to the lethal injection form of execution. I find it difficult to believe that we have the ability to keep a patent entirely pain free through major surgery but we cannot keep them completely unconscious through a lethal injection.
And, I was not accusing you of anything. I paraphrased your comment as part of my inquiry to jimt. But I do think there should be a higher burden of consistency when dealing with human life. Just my opinion.
medwoman,
Actually, I am not in favor of any physician administering a death injection.
If death is to be by injection, a non-medical person could do the simple procedure, with a little training.
A physician could stand by to monitor the whole proceedings; not breaking his oath.
I see no contradiction, however, about not wanting my physician to be involved with executing people!
In old times, the executioner typically was masked, so he was not identified and shunned/feared by community (or himself revenged by friends of condemned). It is definitely a dark duty, and takes a certain type of temperament to be OK with doing it. I do not like the association this provokes in my mind, if my physician were involved. In a similar way, aren’t some couples uncomfortable with being pregnant and having an OB/GYN who also does abortions? (this is not meant to be personal; I’m not asking about your situation in particular, but about one with which you might be familiar from associates in the medical field)
Medwoman, Re:
‘1) Rich has said that he supports the death penalty, but would not volunteer to be the executioner. Would you volunteer and if not, why nit ?’
I might volunteer if it was personal (family member or good friend murdered). A very close friend (we nearly married) was murdered in cold blood by a female acquaintance of hers, for her credit cards. If called on, I might agree to participate in her execution; not with gladness, but because I am one of the most appropriate people to participate, in addition to her family members. And yes, I would be able to look her in the eye, and not be glad to execute her, but afterward relieved that this account is closed.
‘2) If you see justice as a matter of honorably balancing the accounts then it would seem to me a logical extension of this thought process that the correct response to rape would be to rape that individual, the correct response to torture would be torture, and yet I doubt that you, or I, or anyone else who posts here would support these as appropriate sanctions. So what makes the death penalty different in your view?’
I don’t see this as a moral issue so much as a civil issue–as a civilized society we must cede such actions to the courts; we cannot remain civilized unless we abide by the rigorous rules of Law of our civilization, the alternative is chaos. This responsibility trumps that of exacting personal retribution on our own.
medwoman,
‘2) If you see justice as a matter of honorably balancing the accounts then it would seem to me a logical extension of this thought process that the correct response to rape would be to rape that individual, the correct response to torture would be torture, and yet I doubt that you, or I, or anyone else who posts here would support these as appropriate sanctions. So what makes the death penalty different in your view?’
It just occurred to me you meant this as state-sponsored, rather than personal retribution as I assumed in my last post. The difference here is that rape and torture are both acts of degradation that degrade the perp as well as the victims; and of course the state should not degrade itself by sanctioning this. By the way, I am also strongly against torture or sexual humiliation of suspected terrorists for the same reasons; though I’m OK with harsh treatment including annoying and uncomfortable conditions. The death penalty in my view is not an act of degradation; it is rather a more cold and impersonal act of elimination. Those who would commit heinous crimes should understand the sword of Damocles hangs ever closer over them (in the end, it hangs over all of us mortals).
“That said, it is not possible to have a conviction beyond ANY DOUBT. “
I disagree. I think there are a whole class of cases where there is no doubt whatsoever that the defendant killed the person. In fact, the last two murder cases I have seen, there was no doubt that the defendant did it, including Topete, a death penalty case. They have not disputed killing the person.
Now personally I don’t favor the death penalty as I don’t think you teach people not to kill, by killing. Moreover I don’t think a reasonable application of it forms a deterrent.
However, I think if you are going to have a death penalty, the burden needs to be higher to execute than it is to convict.
Jimt
Thanks for the very thoughtful response. Yur last post made me more clearly aware of one of the reasons that I oppose the death penalty.
That is the issue of degradation. I believe that killing another human, with it’s fundamental lack of respect for human life, is as degrading to both the individual and the society, as either rape or torture.
You also made the distinction of individual vs state sponsored retribution. To me, the “state” is nothing more than individuals working to enact the collective decision making of the group. There is nothing inherently more moral about this collective decision making than there is about individual decision making. It is obvious from numerous examples both within this country and from others : legalized slavery, honor killings of women for bringing “shame” upon their families in some societies” , the anti Semitic laws of Nazi Germany ( sorry, just read In the Garden of Beasts) , that just making something a “law” does not make it just, moral or civilized.
So, since I am sure we are in agreement that we need some laws to remain civilized, what can we use for the basis of t criminal law?
I believe that a truly civilized people would recognize two legitimate purposes. The first would be safety. No one is arguing that murders should go free. The argument is for life without thebpossibility of parole. The second is deterrence. I do not believe that the death penalty deters murderers. First, I do not believe that most murders, and certainly not those committed during the course of another crime, are committed by someone thinking rationally about the pros and cons of their actions at all. If someone were thinking rationally about murder, I doubt they would find life imprisonment much more attractive than the death penalty.
Revenge is not on my list of legitimate purposes for any form of penalty for crime. I believe that an act, in this case, the deliberate taking of a human life is inherently immoral regardless of whether it is done by an individual, a non state sponsored collective (aka mob) or the state.
I believe that revenge itself is degrading.
Finally, a question. If you would object to a doctor performing a lethal injection presumably because of a vow to do no “harm”, does this not imply that physicians have felt compelled to some higher standard ? Would it not be more civilized to apply this same standard of ” first do no harm” to as much of our society of possible ? And would it not be refreshing as well as civilizing if our political leaders as representatives of the state also chose to adhere to and promote this higher standard ? Instead of restricting the activities of those who have taken the “first do no harm vow” I would like to see this underlying principle spread throughout our society.
medwoman,
Re: ‘Finally, a question. If you would object to a doctor performing a lethal injection presumably because of a vow to do no “harm”, does this not imply that physicians have felt compelled to some higher standard ? Would it not be more civilized to apply this same standard of ” first do no harm” to as much of our society of possible ? And would it not be refreshing as well as civilizing if our political leaders as representatives of the state also chose to adhere to and promote this higher standard ? Instead of restricting the activities of those who have taken the “first do no harm vow” I would like to see this underlying principle spread throughout our society.’
One of the strengths of civilization is specialization. A large number like you are looking forward and helping civilization evolve positively toward a kinder and more civil society, I’m glad there are physicians like this. However, there also need to be people with a temperament that enables them to ‘guard the back’ of civil society; i.e. police, detectives, soldiers, national intelligence personnel, anti-terrorist specialists, etc. They must deal with the dark side of reality; and be prepared to meet force with force. It seems for a civilization to be successful and evolve, there need to be large numbers of people on both ends (those looking and guiding us forward; and those that are watching our back!).
I like what you have to say about politicians–remember not to judge harshly, however, candidates are set forward that for the most part have succumbed to much larger temptations (essentially to sell out) than most of us are ever exposed to!
Jimt
I see your point, and believe that we would have less need to “guard our back” if all of the leaders, whether the advance, or the rear guard were to behave to a higher standard. Blocking barbaric acts does not mean that we ourselves need to use the same tactics. I do not believe that the enforcement of laws and maintenance of civility needs to be based, or should be based on tolerating “an acceptable level of brutality. I believe that this actually starts with what we teach and the example we set for our children. If we teach them that brutality is an acceptable part of life, they will believe us and embrace it. If we teach them that it is unacceptable through both our words and actions , they will embrace that too. We have the ability to shape the world by the choices that we make and actions that we take each day.