Sep 23, 2008

Something much more important than anything I have to say will occur in about seven hours from now. The State of Georgia will execute Troy Davis for a 1989 murder, which there is substantial doubt that he committed. Mr. Davis was convicted for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer who was acting as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant. Nine witnesses originally fingered Mr. Davis as the shooter. The entire conviction rests upon those eyewitness statements. There is no other evidence implicating Mr. Davis. Of the original nine accusers, seven have recanted their identification of Davis, citing police pressure as the reason they originally fingered him. At least one witness says that detectives told him that he would go to jail unless he identified Davis as the killer. Of the remaining two witness, one cannot be located and the other is a man who several people say has confessed to the crime himself. When he was contacted by the Associated Press, that man declined comment. No one is asking that Davis be freed or even given a new trial at this point. We are asking that Georgia stop this rush to execution. Troy Davis has been on death-row for two decades, what's the hurry now. Jimmy Carter, former Georgia Republican Representative Bob Barr, Amnesty International, the NAACP, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Pope have appealled to the state to stay or delay this execution, all to no avail. The fate of Troy Davis is in the hands of the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal on September 29th to stay Davis' execution, but Georgia plans to kill him today, making his Supreme Court date moot. Shame on Georgia and shame on us for not demanding that State-sponsored killing be stopped once and forever. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

10 comments:

a. said...

Reprieve granted!

edward said...

i can tell by his eyes that he is innocent.

edward said...

besides, his middle name is not wayne.

Megan said...

Not a reprieve, just a stay.

Now we wait some more.

Coffee Messiah said...

Amazing this story is, and how little ideals by certain people continue to not change. ; (

R.L. Bourges said...

The stay is until September 30th. Now's time to act.

Amnesty International has a letter campaign going for Troy:

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=11223

A Concerned Citizen said...

Shame on the state of Georgia, indeed!

Perhaps you should ditch the hardware store and become a death row lawyer instead -- you'd make a damn fine one.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

I hope the stay stays for as long as mr. davis takes a breath on his own...

as one of my favorite buttons proclaims: "why do we kill people to tell people that killing people is wrong?"

end the death penalty now!

and why is it that so many so called prolife people favor the death penalty and support war? is it that they believe life ends after birth? hmmmmm.....

thanks for sharing the davis story...kind of some good news...

Reya Mellicker said...

Thank you for this.

The death penalty is the most cold blooded form of murder, far worse than a crime of passion if you ask me.

Steve Reed said...

Barbaric!