Article 1, Section 9

Troy Anthony Davis has been on death row for 18 years following his conviction of the 1989 murder of a police officer in Savannah, Ga. His execution has been scheduled and rescheduled three separate times, and once, the order for a stay of execution came mere hours before it was to be carried out.

His case has attracted the attention of human rights organizations worldwide, and it was through Amnesty International that it came to my attention.

Since Davis’ trial, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimonies. One of the remaining witnesses has been implicated as the real killer. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder, and the murder weapon has never been found.

I am not a lawyer, but I find it hard to believe he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. While he has once again been granted a stay of execution, his habeas petition has not been approved and no court has yet granted an evidentiary hearing to examine the witnesses.

I cannot imagine the suffering Davis has endured throughout this agonizing process. It could be argued that repeatedly scheduling executions and granting last-minute stays is itself cruel and unusual punishment.

Of course, the unconstitutionality of cruel and unusual punishment is often cited as an argument against capital punishment. While this is an excellent argument, I find other reasons more pressing.

Capital punishment should be abolished because it is not fair. The handing out of death penalties in the United States is discriminatory in two of America’s favorite ways: race and class.

While African-Americans are imprisoned in disproportionate numbers, more whites have been executed than blacks. But while the race of the perpetrator doesn’t seem to be a huge factor in capital cases, the race of the victim makes all the difference in the world.

Seventy-eight percent of victims in capital cases are white, while only about 50 percent of total murder victims are white. It’s not that we see black criminals as being worth less – we just see white victims as being worth more.

Furthermore, the poorer defendant is at a huge disadvantage. This is true of all criminal proceedings, but when the stakes are as high as a capital case, it becomes especially disturbing. Those who are in the lowest third in terms of spending on attorneys are more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death as those who spend more. 

Of course, while Davis might be innocent, there is also a chance he is not. But whether you believe he is guilty or innocent, whether you are opposed to the death penalty or not, I hope you can agree that not granting him a hearing with such an upheaval in the witness testimony would be a crime in itself.