At 11:08 p.m. Eastern time on Sept. 21, the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death by lethal injection for the 1989 killing of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Ga. The only problem is that there is a chance, and a pretty probable one at that, that Davis was innocent.
According to CNN.com, since Davis’ trial in 1991, seven of the nine witnesses against him recanted or contradicted their testimony. One witness recanting testimony is probably reason enough to suggest that Davis might have been innocent and shouldn’t be executed, but when almost every one of them, and certainly a large majority of the witnesses recant or contradict prior testimony, there is no justifiable cause for why that man should be put to death.
Many efforts to stay the execution were taken by Davis’ attorneys prior to his execution. Davis’ attorneys tried to get a local judge in Jackson, Ga., where Davis was put to death, to halt the execution. It was denied. They tried to get the state’s Supreme Court to do the same and it too was denied. Finally, the attorneys turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to CNN, in the hour before Davis’ scheduled execution at 7 p.m. Eastern time. The Supreme Court rejected the stay of execution. Davis was then put to death via the lethal cocktail.
Earlier in the day, many well-respected people, including former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI, had called for the execution to be called off. Evidently nothing was going to stop the state of Georgia from killing this man. Not former leaders of the free world, not religious leaders and not even those responsible for him being on death row, many of whom admitted that they might have been wrong.
If one day it is found out that Davis was innocent in the death of officer MacPhail, his figurative blood will be on the hands of Georgia and the Supreme Court because both were OK with the fact that someone who could be innocent was going to die at their hands.
If there is even the slimmest of chances that someone might be innocent, there shouldn’t be any doubt in the minds of people that they shouldn’t be executed. America loves putting people to death. In fact, we are one of the few countries still in favor of capital punishment. Only 22 countries besides the U.S. have carried out executions since 2010, according to amnesty.org. Some of those countries, such as North Korea, Iran and Libya, aren’t typically countries America likes to be associated with.
According to “Anderson Cooper 360,” around 60 percent of Americans believe in the death penalty. It would seem that Americans are in favor of the “eye for an eye” principle, where if you kill someone, we’ll kill you back. There are probably circumstances in which “eye for an eye” doesn’t seem that bad to me, but if there is even the slightest chance that one might be innocent, it is too high a price to pay and risk to take. I’m not sure I can think of anything more frightening or infuriating than being sentenced to death when you didn’t commit a crime. What would those last terrifying minutes be like while you were strapped down and injected? I can only imagine it being a literal Hell on Earth.
“Eye for an eye” is something that three men, who many people look up to, spoke out against. Jesus Christ said “turn the other cheek” and both Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi said something to the effect that “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”
It seems that often the death penalty isn’t really as much of a form of punishment as revenge. One possibly innocent man put to death is one too many. It’s time for the United States to consider putting an end to capital punishment.