Troy Davis is going to die at 7:00 p.m. tonight.
By now people around the world have heard about Mr. Davis, 42, who’s served two decades on Georgia’s death row for the murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer in 1989. He was convicted almost exclusively on the basis of unreliable eyewitness testimony. Seven of the nine eyewitnesses who testified at his trial have since recanted, and new evidence points to somebody else as the real killer.
Nonetheless, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, in its infinite wisdom, denied Mr. Davis' petition for clemency yesterday. A number of celebrities, bloggers and groups – including Amnesty International, the NAACP, and the Innocence Project – are now trying to get people to petition Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm to withdraw the death warrant, but it looks like Mr. Davis might be executed just as the Tampa Bay/Yankees baseball game comes on ESPN tonight.
Our system is seriously flawed if a single politician from Chatham County – in this case a man who’s been accused of sexual harassment and racial and gender discrimination by several of his employees – has the power to determine whether or not another man will live to see another day. Mr. Davis has been erroneously locked up for 20 years for allegedly doing just that.
My country is not the one that cheered on September 7 when the Governor of Texas boasted about executing 234 human beings during his tenure.
My country isn’t the one that cheered again on September 12 when a presidential candidate was asked if we should let a sick, uninsured man die rather than picking up the tab for his medical care.
My country isn’t the one that executed Cameron Todd Willingham, 36, in Texas on February 17, 2004, for a crime he didn’t commit.
In my country, in 2011, we halt executions when there’s reasonable doubt. We’re not rabid, drooling animals yearning for red meat anymore. In my country, we don’t cheer death – we cheer life and accomplishment and compassion and community. In my country, we respect the sanctity of human life after it’s emerged from the womb as well as before. In my country, we don’t kill black men for being in the wrong place at the wrong time while letting white women who are suspected of murdering their two-year-olds walk. In my country, we admit when we’re wrong, when we need more time, when something deserves a second and even a third look.
We’re human beings. We make mistakes. Let’s not make another one in the Peach State at 7:00 p.m. tonight.
Larry Chisolm
Chatham County District Attorney
133 Montgomery Street
Savannah, Georgia 31401
(912) 652-7308
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
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