Troy Davis gets new hearing December 9
November 28, 2008 at 3:16 pm by Andisheh Nouraee in News
TROY DAVIS: A man holding a photo of Davis protests his death sentence at the state Capitol on October 24.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear arguments December 9 to decide if Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis will be permitted to challenge his murder conviction in federal court.
Davis was condemned to death for the 1989 murder of Savannah police Officer Mark MacPhail. Since his conviction and death sentence, seven of nine witnesses for the prosecution recanted their testimony, and three additional witnesses came forward claiming another man pulled the trigger.
Davis has come within hours of execution on three occasions since July 2007 as his repeated appeals to have his case reconsidered have thus far been rejected by state and federal courts. The 11th Circuit stayed Davis’s most recent execution order on October 27, days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
November 29th, 2008 at 12:41 am
In case we have forgotten, the constitution says liberty and justice for all. The present system has degraded into liberty and legality for all. That a person’s innocence can not be addressed because of a legal time frame shows that the system values expediency over justice.
In any case, state sanctioned murder has no place in a civilized society. It does not decrease crime and sanctions vengeance as the only option for dealing with grief. The lengthy process exacerbates the victim’s family’s suffering and extends their inability to move one. Every life is precious. Thinking that taking a life to pay for another is absurd in the extreme. The loss of someone you love can not be paid for by the loss of someone you don’t love.
State officials who claim to be pro-life and continue the barbaric use of the death penalty are lying to themselves and their constituencies. They are also wasting common funds. It costs more to process an execution than it does to incarcerate someone for life.
November 29th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I WONDER HOW MANY OF YOU WOULD FEEL THE SAME WAY IF IT WAS YOUR FAMILY MEMBER THAT GOT KILLED. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
IT AMAZES ME HOW WE AS A SOCIETY WANTS RIGHTS FOR THE KILLERS BUT NONE FOR THE VICTIMS FAMILY.BY THE WAY BREAKING NEWS IF YOU BREAK THE FRIGGIN LAW YOU PAY THE FRIGGIN PRICE, DARLING. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GET PUNISH BY OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM THEN DON’T KILL ANYONE YOU IGNORANT PIECE OF CRAP.
November 30th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Dear Eburnsed, what kind of rights are you specifically recommending for victims’ families? You make it sound like you are claiming the right for them to have SOMEONE pay for the crime — regardless of whether that particular someone actually did it or not. Then why bother to have laws, courts and trials at all? Why not simply let victims’ families designate whoever they wish to see killed by the state? Innocence would be made irrelevant once and for all, because all that mattered would be what the victims’ families want for themselves, right?
But then let me also ask YOU, dear Eburnsed, how would YOU then feel if someone YOU cared about was picked by some victim’s family to serve as the sacrificial scapegoat they want for closure? Would this kind of society be any more palatable to you? Not to me, anyway.
OK, right now you might be thinking that it can never happen to you or your family… Well, if you live in a switch thrower happy state, I suggest that you think again. Compared with someone who lives in a death penalty free state, your friggin risk of dying at the hands of the state in a friggin wrongful execution actually ADDS to your friggin risk of being murdered by a friggin criminal on one of your friggin streets… ;-)
I personally prefer to deal with just the risk of being murdered, which in my death penalty free country is incidentally much less than in the US anyway (1.5 per 100,000 vs 5.7 per 100,000). This being said, I wish you well, dear Eburnsed, as I equally wish the MacPhail AND Davis families.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
This is America, with Liberty and Justice for all! Troy Davis has the right for his justice, as all prisoners should have had but not all did or do!