Troy Davis is due to be killed by officials of the State of Georgia in only a matter of hours.
The killing has now been approved by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
This State Board, members of which boast of their involvement in religious activities in their on-line biographies, exists in part to authorise the deaths of their fellow human beings.
Troy Davis is just the latest to have his execution approved.
In this one sense, his execution will be unexceptional.
The deliberate taking of life as any kind of punishment is wrong at all times, and in all circumstances.
It does not matter if the execution is widely publicised or if it is not.
And it also does not matter whether there has been some effort at due process, or no effort at propriety at all.
As George Orwell describes in A Hanging, perhaps his most brilliant and moving essay, there is an “unspeakable wrongness” about the judicial taking of any life.
All executions are vile; each one is absolutely wrong.
Nonetheless, the case of Troy Davis is widely regarded as exceptional, and it has attracted international attention and condemnation.
There appear to have been serious irregularities in both the investigation and at trial.
It is said that seven of the nine witnesses at the original trial have now recanted evidence and that someone else has confessed to the original crime.
All these disturbing factors are emphasised in today’s powerful editorial in the New York Times.
Today is now the fourth execution date that has been set for Troy Davis.
Previously his life has been temporarily spared by operation of the criminal justice system.
But there is only so far appeals can seek to check what seems to be an irresistible force of a process intent on ending life.
And this is not some impersonal and abstract process: it is a sequence of decisions and non-decisions by identifiable people with moral agency.
Even if one adopts the horrific misconception of justice that a human life can somehow be taken as a punishment, this is surely not the sort of case where a person should be put to death.
In the United States those in favour of capital punishment in principle (“as long as they are guilty”) are speaking out against its application in this particular instance.
It appears a man will die when there are well-grounded concerns as to his innocence: the State of Georgia is just going to kill him anyway.
Amnesty International has a campaign site for those who wish to try and prevent this execution which I encourage you to visit.
An email in support may even make a difference.
There may be a last-hour reprieve.
But it really does look as if the State of Georgia will kill Troy Davis at its fourth attempt.
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Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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16 comments:
I have sent an email to the Parole Board. I don't know if it will make any difference, but I do know that execution is morally wrong - and especially reprehensible in this case, when it is very likely that Troy Davis is innocent.
I agree. On this evidence there has to be doubt as to the conviction. To execute in such a situation is an abomination. Even the pro-death penalty lobby should be against this execution since, if carried out, it undermines their argument.
Given the facts surrounding this case, what the State of Georgia is about do is not so much an execution as cold-blooded premeditated murder.
This is surely human behaviour at its absolute nadir.
Total agreement, and more. One of the main reasons that we in the UK abhor judicial murder is that it makes it possible for bad people to use the law as a lethal weapon. If the UK had not abolished Capital Punishment, an innocent man would likely have been executed in the case of Lynette White, where the South Wales police officers involved are currently on trial for conspiring to pervert the course of justice. See: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/09/13/lynette-white-corruption-trial-innocent-stephen-miller-gave-detectives-graphic-account-of-murdering-prostitute-91466-29415176/
and http://www.walesonline.co.uk/cardiffonline/cardiff-news/2011/09/06/lynette-white-corruption-trial-police-sent-leanne-vilday-to-fill-in-gap-in-witness-s-evidence-91466-29373407/
The very worrying factor which was common to both these cases was the pressure reported to have been applied by police to "witnesses" to make statements supporting the prosecution case that those police officers wanted to succeed.
And today's update: http://t.co/IKGS80G6
Spare a thought for Lawrence Brewer who also dies tonight.
Mr Brewer is the white supremacist, who admits the killing of James Byrd, jnr, murdered because he was black. I expect many will remember the crime. Mr Byrd was chained to a pick-up and dragged along behind it on a rough asphalt road while still alive. It was about two miles before death took him, when his head and upper right torso were ripped off. Various parts of his body were traumatically severed while he still lived.
There are strong practical arguments against the death penalty, and certainly I would oppose its return in England and Wales. But, if, here, we are all secularists - and ye gods [sic] I certainly am - then what is the origin of the absolute moral rules that secular Jack contends for? What is left, apart from the moral consensus of democratic human societies?
Who am I, or even Jack, to say that is always and everywhere wrong to put a Mr Brewer to death? Why is the execution of a pitiless killer like Mr Brewer not an available choice for moral human beings, assembled in civic society?
Certainly, I struggle to see why the argument there is a solitary and contrary "right" answer can be the "liberal" position asserted by Jack. To me, it appears illiberal. There is only one available conclusion? All human societies which have reached different conclusions are in error? That does not sound a "liberal" thought process to me.
There are many, formidbale ministerial objections to the free citizens of Texas deciding that Mr Brewer and his like should be put to death. The sometimes hopeless legal system; the prejudices of juries; the fallibility of humankind - the list is as long as it is dis-spriting. But to perch on assertion and call it conclusion - "execution (or torture) is always and everywhere wrong" - looks to me like a pose, and certainly not an argument.
I do not know enough about Mr Davis's case, but it sounds like a (terrible) wrong is to be done. But, without more, that is a wrong ON THE FACTS OF HIS CASE. If you want to make a wider case about the absolute error of the death penalty, it would be better, and more honest, wouldn't it, to use Mr Brewer's case as the paradigm, and not Mr Davis's? For my part, for all the horrid apparatus of a state execution, I see no moral outrage, nor even objection, to Mr Brewer receiving a quick and quiet death tonight.
[These comments are not to say that I have anything but profound admiration for this thoughtful and literate blog, which I am delighted to have found.]
I am torn on this issue (of capital punishment) but the cold reason of Jaques Hughes's comment above and the elegant assertion of his argument deserves a standing ovation.
@Jacques Hughes
It is not evident to me why you think it is a good choice on the part of society to execute Mr Brewer.
Care to elaborate?
Jacques Hughes (ho ho) makes some very interesting points and asks about the origins of the absolute moral rules that apparently underscore our abhorrence of capital punishment.
Perhaps it is not so much a question of morality, but rather the knowledge that surely any liberal secularist would find it impossible to administer a lethal injection or flick the switch on an electric chair. Even when it comes to an individual as vile as Lawrence Brewer, how many of us would be capable of taking the place of the executioner tonight?
It interests me, at least in the UK and many other countries, that as a society (or even as a species), we choose to keep alive some truly appalling individuals, whose continued existence serves no obvious benefit, and at significant expense and risk. I could not imagine doing otherwise, but I am not convinced that morality is the real reason.
Jaques has unwittingly made the fundamental point about Liberalism vs Conservatism.
To be a true liberal, one must extend liberal considerations to people one does not personally like. I have no doubt Mr Brewer is an utterly rephrehensible man, but even he deserves the liberal benefit of the doubt as regards the righteousness of the sentence passed.
Whenever one hears of the Sun or the Daily Mail moaning about "criminals with more rights than victims", what they usually mean is that "The Law was applied, and the Person We Don't Like (immigrant/gypsy/single mother/whatever) didn't get the book thrown at them, therefore it's wrong". In the US especially, the desire amongst Republicans is to disenfranchise those seen as undersirables (blacks, gays, mexicans, athiests, the poor, etc) and deny them equality.
Sirs,
I'll be honest - I am, on principal, against the death penalty. I do not believe that the deliberate taking of a life can ever be morally justified in peacetime. My view is not born of religious convictions - for the record I am agnostic.
I am given to understand that
* The majority of the witnesses involved in Mr. Davis's original trial have since retracted their statements.
* Many witnesses have alleged that the police tried to intimidate them.
* Correct procedure was not observed during the investigation.
* No physical evidence linking Mr. Davis to the crime has ever been found.
* Someone else has reportedly confessed to the crime.
* Both a former President of the United States and a former director of the FBI have felt compelled to voice their concerns over this conviction.
It seems therefore, on the face of it, that you are about to execute a man who is potentially innocent of the crime of which he has been convicted. You don't HAVE to do this - you have it within your power to grant a stay of execution and then see that the matter is investigated properly, and afforded a rigorous, accountable investigation. Justice can be done, and seen to be done.
Please, stand back and reflect on what you are about to do. America is supposed to be better than this... This is an avoidable tragedy - avoid it!
Sincerely,
Martin Milan.
United Kingdom.
That last post from me was an email sent a 5pm this afternoon to Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us
I'm not sure that using an appeal to emotion is 'cold reason' but I get to a similar conclusion based on the same facts.
I simply haven't made my mind up on the issue yet. I'm ashamed to say that I have not considered the arguments for all sides to be able to give a rational conclusion or even assemble my own thoughts into something which merits others responding to me.
I can say this; how many people kill flies, wasps, ants, spiders etc without a second thought for the sanctity of their lives?
We consider ourselves to be a higher species based on the fact we can work a mobile phone without looking at the instructions. I see something in nature that works to some kind of equilibrium. I do not see the same from the human species as a whole.
I do not know if Jack of Kent has ever murdered a fly but I suspect like most of us he probably has. I would therefore like a short piece on why a fly would not be considered equally deserving of existence in the way that a human being is if such an act has taken place.
The only people, to my mind, who suggest we have a greater worth or superior consciousness are those who think we were specially created. And that was never a good reason.
"Who am I, or even Jack, to say that is always and everywhere wrong to put a Mr Brewer to death?"
Yes, it is wrong to put a Mr Brewer to death.
Why not, Jacques, tie a Mr Brewer to a truck and treat him just as he treated his victim?
My answer to that would be that we - those of us who cherish civility and humanity - are better than the murderers we condemn.
You appear to want us to join them in their murderous enterprise to - somehow - prove our moral superiority by also deliberately ending a life.
Yes, we should spare a thought for Mr Brewer.
And then we should spare a thought for exactly why we are better than he was.
Jack of Kent: I have already said that I do not really have much of an opinion worth taking seriously because I am slightly ignorant of the issues (and I am ashamed to say that).
However, I do believe that caging animals is morally wrong and cruel.
How do you stand on the other punishments available for murderers ? I mean, do you think tat Troy Davis should have been jailed for life instead? Is this an appropriate punishment which is morally viable considering that it could be considered morally objectionable to cage an animal.
This is one of those situations where my morals end up in conflict because I think it is wrong to cage an animal yet a preferred option, over execution, for a human being.
@Jacques
here's Christopher Hitchens to lay it out for you:
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/christopher-hitchens-staking-a-life.php?page=all
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