After 19 years on death row, two scheduled executions,
innumerable court hearings, rallies and teach-ins, Troy Davis will finally get
his day in court on June 23. In line with the most recent Supreme Court ruling,
the U.S. Federal District Court in Savannah, Ga., will hear evidence as to
Davis’s innocence. Davis was convicted in 1991 of the 1989 murder of police
officer Mark Allen MacPhail. While no gun was found and no physical evidence
linked Davis to the crime, the prosecution produced nine witnesses who
testified to Davis’s guilt.
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Troy Davis |
Since that time, however, seven of
the original nine prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony. Nine new
witnesses have come forward to support claims of Davis’s innocence. Despite
this, courts from Georgia to the U.S. Supreme Court have passed the buck,
either denying Davis a hearing on the new evidence or handing off
responsibility to another jurisdiction. Further hampering Davis’s efforts to
have his case heard with new evidence is the fact that Georgia does not
guarantee counsel for the appeals of death row inmates, leaving him until
recently without effective counsel.
Davis’s case has become a rallying
cry for those who oppose the racist death penalty. Tens of thousands of people
around the world have recognized that the conviction of Davis fits the pattern
perfectly for the racist application of the death penalty in the United States.
In Georgia, specifically, the American Bar Association found a person is 4.5
times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than for
killing a Black person.
It is obvious that Georgia’s legal
authorities want to continue to muzzle Troy Davis to avoid exposing the reality
of their sense of “justice.” With seven witnesses recanting and nine new
witnesses, further investigation in the case of Davis will undoubtedly reveal
police misconduct, coercion and lack of due diligence. Further, the sentence of
death and prosecutors’ zeal to ignore potential exonerating evidence will go
even further to show that the entire death penalty process is more about
playing on racist prejudices for political reasons than finding the truth or
“crime prevention.”
After 19 years on death row, more
than enough potentially exonerating testimony has come to light for Troy Davis
to, at the very least, receive a new hearing. To his many supporters, it is
enough evidence to support his freedom.
19 years too many!
Abolish the racist death penalty!
Free Troy Davis!
