There continues to be a great deal of commentary on Troy Davis' execution. Here are links, with some excerpts. The editorials include:
Charlotte (NC) Observer - "Wilcoxson, Davis show need to end executions."
South Florida Sun-Sentinel - "Use caution in executions."
The Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger carries an editorial column, "Events call to rethink the death penalty," by David Hampton, the paper's Editorial Director.
The columns and syndicated columns include, Ross Douthat's, "Justice After Troy Davis," in the New York Times.
IT’S easy to see why the case of Troy Davis, the Georgia man executed last week for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer, became a cause célèbre for death penalty opponents. Davis was identified as the shooter by witnesses who later claimed to have been coerced by investigators. He was prosecuted and convicted based on the same dubious eyewitness testimony, rather than forensic evidence. And his appeals process managed to be ponderously slow without delivering anything like certainty: it took the courts 20 years to say a final no to the second trial that Davis may well have deserved.
For many observers, the lesson of this case is simple: We need to abolish the death penalty outright. The argument that capital punishment is inherently immoral has long been a losing one in American politics. But in the age of DNA evidence and endless media excavations, the argument that courts and juries are just too fallible to be trusted with matters of life and death may prove more effective.
If capital punishment disappears in the United States, it won’t be because voters and politicians no longer want to execute the guilty. It will be because they’re afraid of executing the innocent.
The Washington Post carries E.J.Dionne's, " Only conservatives can end the dp."
Every so often, one capital case makes a public spectacle of the American machinery of death. Last week, it was the controversy over Troy Davis, who was executed in Georgia after years of impassioned argument, organizing and litigation.
I honor those who worked so hard to save Davis’s life because they forced the nation to deal with the imperfections and, in some instances, brutalities of the criminal justice system.
Yet after all the tears are shed, the repeal of capital punishment is still a political question. Can the politics of this question change? The answer is plainly yes.
In the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts writes, "On death penalty, confidence does not replace truth."
They killed Troy Davis Wednesday night.
He went to his death still proclaiming his innocence of the 1989 murder of a Savannah, Ga., police officer. Davis was convicted on “evidence” that boiled down to the testimony of nine eyewitnesses, seven of whom later recanted.
But Spencer Lawton, who originally prosecuted the case, would not want you to worry your head about that. Hours before Davis was put to death, Lawton was quoted by CNN as saying he had no doubts about the case and was confident Davis was the killer. How much do you want to bet the prosecutors of Fain, Brewer, Krone or any of those hundreds of others would have said the same thing, expressed the same confidence? Without that confidence, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Meaning the death penalty, a flimsy edifice erected on the shaky premise that we always get it right, that human systems always work as designed, that witnesses make no mistakes, that science is never fallible, that cops never lie, that lawyers are never incompetent.
You have to believe that. You have to make yourself believe it. Otherwise, how do you sleep at night?
So of course a prosecutor speaks confidence. What else is he going to speak? Truth? Truth is too big, too dangerous, too damning. Truth asks a simple question: In what field of endeavor have we always gotten it right? And you know the answer to that.
"Troy Davis and blind justice, Texas style," by Mike Littwin in the Denver Post.
What makes the Troy Davis execution different from most executions is that you have heard so much about it.
Every so often, a death-penalty case makes the headlines. Not usually. Certainly not always. In some places — like Texas, where Rick Perry -- has presided over more than 200 executions -- it's almost routine.
In fact, on the same day Davis was executed in Georgia, Lawrence Brewer, an admitted white supremacist, was executed in Texas for his part in the infamous dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man.
There were at least two newsworthy items from Brewer's execution:
Several of Byrd's children were quoted as saying they didn't believe anything was accomplished by executing Brewer. "You can't fight murder with murder," Ross Byrd, a son, told Reuters. "Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."
The Seattle Times' Lynne Varner writes "The death penalty: Are we getting it right?" It's via the Sacramento Bee.
"Casey Anthony is found not guilty by reasonable doubt but Troy Davis is executed despite tremendous and widespread doubt," was one of the most salient tweets during an evening in which Troy Davis was the biggest topic on Twitter.
This execution wasn't justice. My sympathies to the family of officer Mark MacPhail, but this wasn't even the retribution they were seeking.
It is these kinds of miscarriages of justice that strengthen calls for abolishing the death penalty.
The Birmingham News has, "How many innocent people have to die for revenge?" It's by Joey Kennedy.
How many innocent men and women is it worth killing to maintain a capital punishment system as flawed as Alabama's? One? Ten? How many? If it were your brother -- or you -- would the collateral damage be worth it to maintain a system that kills people, really for no other reason than revenge?
We don't need capital punishment to keep citizens safe. Life without parole does that. We don't need capital punishment as a deterrent. Study after study has shown the death penalty is no deterrent. Indeed, the states with the most aggressive capital punishment laws have the highest murder rates. States without the death penalty have the lowest murder rates.
Killing somebody might be sweet revenge, for a victim's family, for the angry public. But should the state, should the government, be in the revenge business? Should we? And this thing called "closure," is it really what we think it is? Can killing a horrible person who took a life in a heinous crime really give us closure? Does it bring back our loved one? No. We still have that hole in our hearts, in our souls, that will never be filled, no matter how much revenge we exact.
Oakland Tribune contributing columnist Byron Williams writes, "Davis case is an unfathomable constitutional tragedy," via the Contra Costa Times.
In the Wichita Falls Times Record News, Deanna Watson writes, "Even the smallest sliver of doubt should preclude harshest sentence."
The Los Angeles Daily News: "Friendly fire: Execution examination," by Jonathan Dobrer and Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
Maine's Lewiston Sun Journal: "Death penalty conundrum goes on," by Doug Rooks.
The Colombus Ledger-Enquirer of Georgia: "Davis case indicts death penalty," by Theresa El-Amin.
Earlier coverage of Troy Davis' execution begins at the link.
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