Fuck

[filkertom]

Troy Anthony Davis was killed by the state of Georgia for crimes which many believe he didn't commit.

Songs and comfort to his family and supporters, and also to the family and supporters of slain police officer Mark MacPhail. There is nothing good about this situation -- nothing.

Here is actor Jeremy Irons speaking out on the death penalty.

Comments

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who is not opposed to the death penalty, I think there was enough doubt here that he should have been commuted to a life sentence. I still think the evidence shows he probably did kill that cop, but we shouldn't execute people over "probably".

[alverant.livejournal.com]

What evidence? Nine witnesses, 7 of which claim police coercion when they recanted, one of the remain two is a suspect. No credible physical evidence either. There isn't even enough for "probably".

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Plus two other people who claim Davis confessed to them that he did it. Did he? I don't know. Hence my belief he shouldn't have been executed.

On the other hand, there are "people" on whom I would cheerfully flip the switch myself.

Example 1 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nat/story/2011-09-21/texas-execution-dragging-death/50500964/1)

Example 2 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44591856/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/)

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Sure those "confessions" actually happened and they weren't people looking for a favor from the DA?

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

No, I don't know, hence my use of the words "I don't know" further up.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

This case quite likely constitutes an error in the system. We know there have been others.

My question to you, and supporters of the death penalty in general, is: What's an acceptable rate of false positives in executions?

Certainly 50% is too high a number. I think 10% is too. 1%? Personally, I'd rather see 99 murderers have to live out their lives in prison than see one wrongly-convicted person be executed. Maybe 0.1% is okay?

How many actual murderers do we need to kill to make it okay that a single innocent is wrongly executed?

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

I agree with the maxim "better that 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man go to prison", but also that for some crimes the only appropriate punishment is death.

As for a specific percentage, that's a nonsensical question. The only real answer is however many are convicted. Beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

Okay, let me make my point clearer. Given that the justice system is going to make mistakes, from time to time - it's a system run by humans, using their best judgement, but it's not perfect - then if the death penalty is in place, some percentage of those executed will in fact be innocent. And whereas with other punishments, those errors can eventually be recognized and fixed - for example, the large number of death-row convicts that have been exonerated by DNA evidence years after their convictions, which predated the availability of that technology - once you kill someone, there's no way to go back later and fix it.

I hope you'll agree that if 50% of the people sentenced to death were innocent, implementing the death penalty in so inaccurate a justice system would be a horrible idea. Clearly you're fine with it if the number is 0%. So presumably there has to be a point somewhere in the middle where, in your opinion, the benefit of killing all the rightly-executed criminals outweighs the harm of executing innocents. Where is it?

I'm personally fine with the death penalty in the case of a 0% false-execution rate. I'm not okay with it at 1%. Given that I actually don't see much marginal benefit in executing a prisoner over imprisoning them for life with no parole, whereas I see the cost of executing an innocent person as nearly unimaginably high, if I had to pick a non-zero number it would probably be in the range of 0.00001% - one executed innocent for ten million executed criminals might be an acceptable risk.

And then I note that the false positive rate of our death sentences is much higher, and the death penalty just isn't worth that cost to me. So I'd like to know where your cost-benefit analysis differs.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I haven't followed this case closely, but I am certainly troubled by what I have heard. I support the death penalty; what I have a problem with is our justice system in general. For every person that is executed, there are thousands that are locked up for their entire lives without a death sentence. Death penalty cases are subject to "super due process", many appeals, and constant legal steps up to the moment of death, and yet we still come out with cases where we the public are not sure the condemned was actually guilty. What does that say about the thousands of routine cases where someone gets locked up, either for a life sentence or for a term that's longer than they end up living, after a routine trial, and then get forgotten? Why is it that every time an execution is in the news, there is worldwide hand-wringing about the possibility that we executed an innocent, but nobody ever worries about the possibility that we imprisoned an innocent? The Constitution says we have to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but that phrase seems to mean something different to our courts and juries than it does to me. And after conviction, I'm also very troubled by the way our appeals process works. This case echoes another case a few years ago, where there was significant evidence that wasn't prevented at trial, but the accused couldn't get a new trial, because the courts considering his appeal weren't concerned with whether he was guilty or not, but only if his first trial had met their legal standards of "fair". Am I really a crazy nutcase for thinking that a trial can't possibly be fair if it didn't get the right answer?

[catlin.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I Have to take faith in the fact that the courts and jury hear more then we do as backseat juries. The Casey anthony verdict is a clear example. Something said to the jury convinced them that she was innocent, even while the court of the media damned her. By the same token, in most cases, I have to think the jury saw something we do not at home see, to convince them of guilt. In some cases like this one, the evidence they saw may have been fabricated. Quite frankly that DA and police team need to undergo a serious IA investigation. I have to believe though that that is the exception not the norm, to stay sane.

[morvab.livejournal.com]

As the daughter of a criminal lawyer and sister of a lawyer, I would like t0 point out that what is reported in the news is never the full information that was heard in court, and it is pretty much always reported with bias. I never try to second guess juries, judges or cops based on the news. However, that does not mean that they always get all the information or that they make the right decisions - the number of cases where people were later discovered to be unjustly imprisoned is sadly high. And at risk of sounding critical, I think the US system of elected judges and the individualistic culture leads to both more opportunities for abuse and more likelihood that revenge will be the watchword of the jury. I don't have a better system to propose, but I think one needs to be wary of simply accepting the idea that the justice system in either of our countries is infallible.
One of things I am proudest of about my late father is that he campaigned tirelessly and was finally instrumental in having the death penalty removed in Canada. He was a great admirer of the American lawyer Clarence Darrow, who said in his closing argument of the Loeb and Leopold trial in 1924 (ellipsis mine):
"Your Honor stands between the past and the future. You may hang these boys; you may hang them, by the neck until they are dead. But in doing it you will turn your face toward the past. In doing it you are making it harder for every other boy who in ignorance and darkness must grope his way through the mazes which only childhood knows..... I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by, reason and judgment and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man."
Tom - thanks for the link to the Jeremy Irons video - it was beautifully said.

[batyatoon]

I cursed a lot when I heard, and then I stopped because there just aren't enough curses.

The thing is. I support the concept of a death penalty; I believe that it is (or can be) as legitimate and just for a legal system to take a convicted criminal's life as it is for that same system to take a convicted criminal's liberty.

But given the way the death penalty is misused in this country, given the fact that the misuse is systemic and too deeply entwined with too many other horrible injustices ... I can't support it. Our legal system is too broken to be allowed the power of life and death. This has to stop.

And that's all I keep coming back to, every time I think about this for too long: repeating over and over this has to stop.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

I agree with this entirely.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

In theory I'd love for the death penalty to keep the state from releasing repeat offenders. (Or for fuck's sake make them finish out their goddamn sentences. This year Phillip Garrido should have been serving Year 34 of his 50-year prison sentence for his FIRST rape-torture-kidnapping offense in 1977 - but it's not like rape is a REAL crime that causes REAL harm to REAL people, it's just something funny men can't help doing to women so they let him walk after 5 years...Bitter? Oh so very.)

But in practice? Capital punishment is pretty much a license for Southern prisons to kill poor black and Hispanic men who are imprisoned for felonies committed against white people.

My favorite quote about the death penalty came from Anthony Hopkins, when he was questioned about his opinions during his promo for Silence of the Lambs: "Well, when you get right down to it, execution is destroying evidence in a case, doesn't it?"

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

I prefer Ian MacKellen's take...

http://youtu.be/vrlTeoFcf-Q

[jamesnorcross.livejournal.com]

Given the amount of protests and media coverage over the Davis execution, I find it interesting that there was very little (if any) in regards to the execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer, which took place the same night.