By the time I finish writing this, America will have executed two men tonight. One of them was guilty and to any right-thinking person, a horrible human being. One of them was very possibly innocent.
Neither of them should have died.
Our justice system lets us down in so many ways, so constantly. It’s hard, however, at a moment like this, when Troy Davis has spent the last few hours strapped to a gurney waiting to find out if he’s going to be murdered by his country for a crime he very well may not have committed, to believe that there is a way it lets us down any more greatly than this.
There are those among us who believe that killers deserve to be killed. Ann Coulter tweeted tonight during Davis’ wait “ONE TROY DAVIS FLAME-BROILED, PLEASE”.
It isn’t hard to understand this mentality, but it is hard to get people to shed it. There are those who would have you believe that Lawrence Brewer’s death, because he was guilty, was justice. But justice and revenge are not the same thing, and an eye for an eye is unmistakably the latter. You can’t cancel out brutality with brutality, hatred with hatred, violence with violence. All you can do is continue a cycle that lessens us all.
For those of you who find this argument to be sentimental, impractical nonsense, I’ll offer a few more facts. Since 1973, over 130 people have been released from death row in the United States after varying amounts of time due to having proven their innocence. There are several cases, generally overlooked by the media, of men who are believed to have been innocent and were executed. Girvies Davis is one of them. David Wayne Spence is another. Cameron Todd Willingham. These are just a few of the men who have been murdered by the state despite being demonstrably innocent of the crimes they were executed for. Tonight Troy Davis joins their ranks.
If that’s not enough for you, and you’re currently shaking your head waiting to talk about how keeping these men in prison costs more than the death penalty, and “why should we pay to feed and house these killers anyway”, hold on. Hold that thought. Recent studies indicate that that’s not the case, at all. Life imprisonment in many, if not most, cases costs the state less. So there goes that argument.
Mind you, I don’t think for an instant that state murder should be a question of cost. I don’t give half a damn if executing a man costs ten cents and imprisoning him costs ten thousand. Life is not, or should not be, a question of money. But if that’s your argument, try again.
Consider, also, the company the US keeps in continuing to practice the death penalty. Here’s a list:
- Afghanistan
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belize
- Botswana
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Chad
- China (People’s Republic)
- Comoros
- Congo (Democratic Republic)
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Ghana
- Guatemala
- Guinea
- Guyana
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Jordan
- Korea, North
- Korea, South
- Kuwait
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Libya
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Mongolia
- Nigeria
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestinian Authority
- Qatar
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- St. Lucia
- St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Saudi Arabia
- Sierra Leone
- Singapore
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Swaziland
- Syria
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Uganda
- United Arab Emirates
- United States
- Vietnam
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Seeing a lot of names on that list you’re proud to call comrade in human rights? Yeah, me neither.
I’ll end this with one thought.
Our government, our system, is reflective. When our system continues to commit murder, and we do nothing, we are complicit in creating and allowing this monstrous system to thrive. It’s well past time to stop standing for this barbaric behavior.
Edit: Now that we know what they were, I”ll close instead with Davis’s last words.
“The incident that took place that night was not my fault. I did not have a gun. [Addressing the victim's family] I did not personally kill your son, father, brother; I am innocent. Look deeper in this case, so you can find the truth. [Addressing the prison staff who were about to take his life] May God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls.”
January 22, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Glad your back. After finding your site on the ‘skeptical links’ section of The Skeptic’s Dictionary (Aaahhhh … The Skeptic’s Dictionary), I thoroughly enjoyed going through the whole thing and had just reached your most recent post when you seemed to go quiet for a time. I checked in with ya occasionally and now your back! Great stuff, I like almost all of your views.