Is It Worth It?

Meet Troy Davis.

I have not been keeping up too closely with the Troy Davis situation, but I have recently tried to inform myself.

From what I've read, this is just awful.

Off duty police officer Mark McPhail was killed by someone in a Burger King parking lot, probably either Davis or Redd Coles.  A bunch of witnesses said it was Troy Davis.  No physical evidence connected him to the crime.

Over the years, the majority of those who identified Davis as the shooter - or said that Davis confessed to him - have recanted their testimony.  When finally granted a hearing, Davis's lawyers failed to get Coles to appear before the court.  They were unable to subpoena him.  Because of that, testimony that other have made - that Coles confessed to shooting McPhail - was disallowed.  The judge ruled that while most of the recantations were dubious, a few seemed possible.

But what the hell, let's kill Davis anyway.

In all likelihood, Troy Davis is going to be killed tonight by the state of Georgia.  He will be taken into a room, a needle inserted into his arm and his heart stopped.

Can anyone plausibly argue that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?  I can't.  He might be guilty, but there are all sorts of doubts, doubts that even judges who have ruled against him have acknowledged.

How can this happen?

In part, because the legal system has evolved to a point where logic and justice are only vaguely aspirational goals - especially when it comes to people accused of killing police officers.  Logic and reason argue overwhelmingly that Davis is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  But because of when those doubts entered into the legal machinery, those doubts are not given much weight.

This reflexive deference to the original trial makes sense if you are trying to foreclose endless rearguing of the same case.  It does not make sense if you want to avoid executing an innocent man.

And this lies at the heart of the problem with the death penalty.  Unless something extraordinary happens, Troy Davis will be dead tomorrow.  That's it.  No more appeals, no more quests to find justice.

Mark McPhail and Troy Davis will both be dead, and likely both killed illegitimately.

Here in Connecticut, we had the awful home invasion case where a mother and two girls were raped, mutilated and killed, their house burned down around them.  The evidence against the two is overwhelming and beyond a shadow of a doubt.  I can see where the state might decide that one or both of them should die.  Their crime is so lurid it sounds like a bad cop procedural show.

But we need to find a way to prevent potentially innocent people from getting executed.

Because when the state kills an innocent person, it's murder, same as what happened to Mark McPhail.

And when the state does it, it implicates us all.