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How can we allow uncertainty to lead to execution?
Leonard Pitts Jr.
October 27, 2008
This is a rewrite.
In the column originally prepared for this space, I said that Troy
This is Mr. Davis' third stay, his third hairsbreadth escape from execution. If there is any justice, it will be his last. Meaning not that he will be killed, but that he won't, that the state of
Mr. Davis was convicted in the 1989 death of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty
Mr. Davis is connected to the crime by no forensic evidence. He stands convicted solely on the word of nine witnesses, seven of whom have since recanted. Of the two who have not recanted, one is a man who is said by some witnesses to be the real shooter.
For many of you, this is an old story. I've written about it before, as have others. Jimmy Carter and the pope have also spoken out on Mr. Davis' behalf. Is it too much to hope that somebody will finally listen?
I oppose the death penalty for many reasons.
In the first place, it is biased by race: Offenders whose victims were white are statistically more likely to be put to death than those whose victims were of some other race.
In the second place, it is biased by gender: Male offenders are statistically more likely to be put to death than females who commit similar crimes.
In the third place, it is biased by class: Those who can afford high-priced lawyers are statistically more likely to escape execution (paging O.J. Simpson) while those who can't are more apt to wind up in the death house.
In the fourth place, it has no deterrent effect.
In the fifth place, it is more expensive than the alternative: life in prison without parole.
In the sixth place, it is wrong - and not just wrong, but crude, cruel and immoral. No government should arrogate unto itself the right to put its citizens to death.
But you know what? Put all those reasons aside. Pretend they don't exist. Because the thing that troubles me more than all of them combined, the thing that makes Mr. Davis' case an abomination, is the simple possibility, indeed, the likelihood, that we will get it, have already gotten it, flat-out wrong.
Who can doubt? There are few things less perfect than human beings, after all, yet that's what is required for anyone to feel even marginally sanguine about this custom of state-sponsored death: perfection. We need to believe that in this most somber of endeavors, unlike in all others, human beings will somehow magically make no mistakes, get everything right, be flawless.
It's a delusion that does not bear scrutiny; if you look too closely, the facade cracks and you are forced to ponder what's being done in your name. So most of us will, I expect, look the other way, think not too long upon it, if Troy Davis were put to death, proclamations of innocence on his lips as they have been for almost 20 years.
Maybe you're telling yourself, Leonard Pitts has no idea whether Mr. Davis is innocent or not. Well, you're right. I don't know; you don't know. And that's the point.
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The
Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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