The state of Georgia is planning to execute a man for murder tomorrow, on the basis of a very shaky case in which most of the witnesses have recanted their testimony, and who have said the police pressured them into their initial accusations. I can’t make any judgments on whether he is guilty or innocent — the case has not been made strongly enough to justify an irrevocable and terminal decision. That is why it is criminally wrong for the state to kill him for this crime.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is about to commit an injustice. Write or fax them at (404) 651-8502 now.
You can also send a message through Amnesty International. It’s a disgrace that our country is about to do something as horrific as what we condemn Islamic regimes for doing — a barbaric punishment on the most tenuous grounds.
(via RDF)
(Also on Sb)
As I understand it the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles hasn’t done anything in 33 years. We’re not just fighting against an establishment, but an entrenched establishment.
Cross-post from TET:
The worst thing about the Troy Davis affair is that the family of the slain police officer are calling this justice served and that they can now go forward through the rest of their lives knowing Davis has been put to death.
No they won’t. The death of a possibly innocent man will not help them. The fact they can sleep at night knowing that their state government condemned a possibly innocent man to death for a crime he may not have committed is atrocious.
Sad as it is, their husband, father, brother, whatnot will not be brought back to life by killing another person. The death penalty is wrong. I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you’ve done. It’s wrong to put someone else’s life in the hands of emotionally unstable, mentally irrational, self-serving primates.
Sadly, many people feel it brings “closure” when the death of another can do nothing of the sort.
The only “closure” comes from within.
—–
My question is why is it not okay for an individuals (or a small group) to kill, yet it is perfectly acceptable for the state (which does it in the name of the people, supposedly) to kill?
Even if there was solid evidence he did the crime, capital punishment doesn’t do the good it claims to (deterrence) enough to warrant the risk of innocents getting executed, however small. Why do we trust the same government that screws up our DMV forms to kill the right person?
Outrage duly registered.
Condemnation of islamic countries when it comes to executions/punishments are not simply because the evidence is shaky – which, of course is always condemnable. Islamic countries also have a nasty habit of executing people for what shouldn’t be crimes at all – drinking alcohol, homosexuality, [what they perceive to be] sexual immorality, etc. Heck, in many places rape victims are put to death when they can’t produce four eyewitnesses for the rape. The comparison isn’t remotely justified.
I’ve been following this for a while now. It really is upsetting. In my opinion, nobody deserves execution (and also, we don’t deserve to live under a state that has that kind of power), but the case of Troy Davis just highlights the unfairness of the American justice system when it comes to black people and violent crimes. The trial was obviously a mistrial because of the problems with witnesses. He deserves a new one and a much better defence.
Email sent. Killing people is about hatred, should the government be in the business of hate?
I strongly oppose the death penalty, but S has a point. We’re not on the same level as Islamic countries. For that matter, it’s not even correct to say we’re the only 1st world country to do capital punishment, though I’m guessing we do it more than others by far. There are plenty of reasons to want to end this barbarism without appeals to “we need to be like other civilized countries” or “we need to be unlike backwards countries.”
Not to discourage but I’m honestly curious if there is any history of a letter / call campaign that has been successful at this point in the process?
Who says that this sort of thing isn’t a deterrent? I for one fell a strong urge to completely avoid Georgia.
Already signed two petitions today (there is another, from the NAACP, that I know of) and will send an email as well. It all seems hopeless, but such small gestures to try to save a person’s life, how can I not?
It’s strange how the justice system works. They get a conviction, however shaky, and suddenly the whole proving guilt/reasonable doubt premise gets flipped on its head, and now they have to go beyond doubt and prove innocence.
*feel* a strong….
All:
The Georgia Board of Pardons rejected Troy Davis’s plea, which is no surprise. But you can STILL call the office of the Savannah District Attorney, Larry Chisolm, and urge him to withdraw the death warrant on Troy Davis, seek clemency, and stop the execution. The number is (912) 652-7308.
Call ASAP and bug all of your friends and family to do so as well.
PZ, please update your original entry with the above phone number and plea.
I did the Amnesty petition. I am also sorry I can’t do more, but the fact that I live on almost the opposite side of the planet has something to do with it.
I signed not just because I am against the death penalty as a matter of principle, but also because of the apparent doubts surrounding this particular conviction. Now I hope that the powers that be don’t just dig in deeper when they receive too many (in their eyes) pleas for a stay of execution.
Have petitions/campaigns like this ever helped to cancel a execution?
I went to bed last night when the verdict was still undecided, and I wake up to find this horror… I’ve signed every petition I could find, and sent out e-mails. I just hope this effort works. I am sickened and saddened by my country right now. Why are they not investigating Sylvester “Redd” Coles? There is just not enough evidence to convict Troy Davis, let alone put him to death! I am horrified. There is no peace in this for an atheist. Religious people may think this innocent man will go to heaven, but for me, all I see is a good life wasted in the worst way possible. Troy Davis, I’m so sorry your time on Earth had to be like this… I am pulling for you!
Signed and hoping for the best. This is appalling.
Boycott, boycott, boycott. Refuse to do business with any company based anywhere in GA. No income for business, no tax money for the state. Deprive them of their treasure and they’ll wake up.
GA based businesses include Delta Airlines, Holiday Inn, Turner Broadcasting, Home Depot, SunTrust Bank, Frigidaire, Levolor, among others.
This Wikipedia page lists GA based companies by state, category and locality:
http://bit.ly/nHHiMa
You have bigger voices than I. Get the word out.
S and Pinko make the argument defending the US not by saying we are not barbaric rather we are not AS barbaric as fucking Iran. If that’s the best you can say about our death penalty that’s a fairly shitty argument. I hope setting the bar so low helps you sleep better
@3:
Right conclusion, but wrong argument. There are lots of lesser things — physical restraint and confinement, confiscation of property (eg. fines, taxes, expropriation) — that we allow the state to do, but deem wrong for any one or a few of us to do on our own authority. We allow this because we recognize (well, those of us who aren’t Randroid morons) that many of our individual interests (such as personal security) are best served by collective action safeguarded by due process.
There are lots of things wrong with the death penalty, but this isn’t one of them (though in this case, the “due process” bit seems to have been honored in the breach).
Done, a few hours ago. I too, was gob-smacked at the way the family is fooling themselves if they think executing a possibly innocent man serves justice in any way. Haven’t they thought of the corollary: that a guilty man is getting away with murder?
How can Larry Chisolm look at himself in the mirror each morning? Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, and several of those eyewitnesses have recanted their testimony. Larry Chisolm knows full well that many death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence. Unfortunately, Troy Davis doesn’t have that option.
If I were Chisolm, I would quake in terror at the prospect of killing Troy Davis, and then finding out next month, next year, or whenever, that he was undoubtedly innocent.
I fear I will weep tomorrow for Troy Davis–and for the American justice system.
Sent the message by Amnesty International when it was mentioned on TET.
pinkboi says:
Please don’t fool yourself. Civilised and non-backward countries do not execute people, period. It is pretty much a defining characteristic.
And outside the USA, only Japan could charitably be counted as a “first world” country that still uses the death penalty. There are no others, at all.
Here is a nice little list for you: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_exe_percap-crime-executions-per-capita
Sent. What a travesty.
I fired up the fax machine for this one. I’m just old-fashioned that way, I guess.
Meanwhile, the guy who actually did kill that cop is free as a bird.
I’m totally against the death penalty, however Troy Davis is guilty and should spend the rest of his natural life in prison, solitary would be good. I am from Savannah and have followed this case from the night Davis murdered Officer Mark MacPhail. He has acted guilty from the beginning because he is. Next thing your going to say is that Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent also. If you really want to help end the death penalty find an innocent person to support.
teawithbertrand says:
Let’s hope the recipients also have proper fax machines and do not receive their faxes in their e-mail, like modern offices do (since about 10 years). Now go waste them some paper…
This is why the death penalty should be abolished in all nations. When it has the potential to be abused even once — and who is going to argue that it hasn’t? — then it has the potential to be abused at every turn. And to allow a state the ability to abuse its own citizens right to life is unconscionable.
How anyone could condemn a man to death in our “enlightened” country when there is the slightest doubt of his guilt is incomprehensible to me. It speaks of a cold, murderous heart, or of one that is afflicted by the disease of faith, that allows them to believe that they couldn’t possibly be doing something wrong when they “feel” that it is right.
At times like this I feel a deep, smoldering shame for any other nation that would do such a reprehensible, downright evil thing.
There is no turning back from such an act, and by this time tomorrow an innocent man may well have murdered by the state that is sworn to protect its citizens, all for the desire to exact revenge!
To Ing at #18:
You missed the point of my post. I wasn’t saying anything about the merits or lack of merits of the death penalty. I was merely pointing out that the reason we condemn islamic socities is not for executing people on shaky evidence, which is what PZ said in the last line. I didn’t make a scale of comparison of barbarism – that occured in your head. I didn’t attempt to justify the US or anybody else, anywhere in my comment. I just voiced a plain fact. And I sleep more than I ought to as it is.
Ed:
The way a person “acts” is not evidence for anything.
Ed:
That should be proven in a court, during a proper trial.
Ed:
There are two things here: 1. the death penalty should be abolished (and forbidden) regardless of the guilt or innocence of convicts and 2. whether due process was followed in this case. Most people here seem to support the protest because of both these issues.
It’s not okay for an individual to kill because the state determines guilt or innocence and determines punishments. Using your logic, imprisonment by the state should also be unacceptable since an individual cannot forcibly abduct and confine another citizen.
I’m against the death penalty also, but your argument is fatally flawed.
To Olav at #23: Isn’t Singapore a first world country? I can think of a few other examples also, but then we might enter into a quibble over what is a first world country. Kuwait? Anyway your point that “there are no others, at all” is not true.
And I reiterate, I neither support nor oppose the death penalty, I’m not convinced wither way at this stage.
*either, not wither
Has a letter-writing campaign ever saved someone from being executed?
Olav: Abolish the death penalty!! Just don’t do it by letting all the murders go free. By the way, he was convicted in court, properly. Throw out all the eye witnesses, even the ones who HAVEN’T recanted, and he is still guilty.
Olav or anyone else here was advocating that?
This really makes me feel physically sick. That any supposedly civilised country can still be putting its citizens to death (guilty or not) is mind boggling.
Hip, hip hooray for Perry’s 200+ Sick
My god I just despair. Feeling very sad and angry right now.
Throw out all the eye witnesses, even the ones who HAVEN’T recanted, and he is still guilty.
If you can and are willing, I’d love to hear what evidence you’re using to make this statement. I’d had the impression that the conviction was based entirely on eye witness accounts, but I’m no expert on this case by any means.
First, why do you think that anyone wants to let murderers go free? Who has said this?
Second, so if someone is convicted it must be true? Seriously? You do realize many people have later been exonerated and released from prison, right? After “proper” trials too. Frankly after your post indicating that he “has acted guilty” as justification I would hate to have you on a jury if I was in court. Your standard of evidence is seriously flawed. I am not sure if your emotions are blinding you to your illogical arguments or if there is some other reason, but either way it is scary.
Ed, the physical evidence against him is sorely lacking and 7 of the 9 eye witnesses against him have recanted claiming they were bullied by police to answer in a given way. One of the two remaining people who say they saw him do it is a suspect and eager to point the finger at someone else.
Saying he was properly convicted is a stretch at best. White cop, black suspect, in Georgia. You do the math.
Would you bet YOUR life on it?
Then why ask someone else to?
Signed the Amnesty petition. Proponent of the death penalty alway put themselves in the place of the victim’s relatives, or of the executioner – never that of the innocent person about to be be executed. THere are quite a few people walking the streets of Britain now who would have died for crimes they had nothing to do with if we had retained the death penalty.
Why do people think Singapore is a good/favorable country to live in? Everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound draconian, tyrannical and awful.
Very true. Birmingham six, Guildford four etc. BUT that isn’t the point. It is not OK to kill people. The death penalty is quite simply wrong. Inaffective, barbaric. WRONG.
Mind you I’m an atheist who obviously can’t tell right from wrong without a book to guide me so just ignore me, ok?
All,
Please read…
http://www.fop9.net/markmacphail/debunkingthemyths.cfm
S says:
My answer would be: no, neither should be counted as “first world” and they never were under any traditional definition. Perhaps if you just count the richest countries in the world they could qualify, but both of them are not really free societies which is usually understood as being a requirement.
Now if you would argue that the term “first world” is actually quite useless, then I would concede.
Then you haven’t thought it through long and hard enough. Everybody who did came out a strong opponent of that barbaric practice. It serves no other goal than to exact revenge, which in itself does nothing to improve society.
The death penalty does not prevent crime. Education prevents crime.
@Ing – Ah, the ravages of drugs. Makes you see things that aren’t even there. I made it clear that I think the death penalty is barbaric and that I’m against it. Nowhere did I even remotely suggest that our behavior in that area is acceptable.
You want to point to any evidence that I’m on drugs you prick?
@Ed
I don’t care if he did it or not but I agree with your earlier statement that if he did, he should just face a life sentence.
Punishment has no intrinsic value to it. Only insofar as it serves as a deterrent is it justified. Someone in jail isn’t a threat to anyone outside as they have no weapons. It doesn’t make us any safer nor bring any victims back to life to kill someone who’s already imprisoned (unless you really think they’ll escape in which case we have maximum security prisons). Closure isn’t as desirable as people think it is (nor as possible).
If doing harm is an evil, it’s not less of an evil when it’s done to a bad person. It is only on the grounds of giving incentives to do good and disincentives to do bad that we reward and punish. With or without punishment, some people will murder anyway and most people will generally not do bad things anyway. Not to say punishment in general is bad, but that it shouldn’t aggressively be sought. Enough punishment to provide disincentive and no more, like Sweden’s “cushy” prisons.
Funny: that’s what the cops who arrested me said all throughout my trial.
Turns out they were right about all aspects of “acting guilty” except for the one that’s not bullshit—having committed the crime.
No, you just agreed that you’re still somehow better than the other countries who also do it.
@Ed
I also disagree with the logic behind that we should support an obviously innocent person if we want to end the death penalty. That is rubbish. If you’re against the death penalty, then you are against murderers being killed. If you cannot make the case on behalf of an obviously guilty person, then you’ll never convince the general public to elect politicians who will work to end the death penalty. Presumably, even people who are for the death penalty don’t want innocents to get the injection.
@Ed, 46
Would you please provide the evidence, judged by a court and from a reasonable source, that supports the claims made on this website?
Myth 2 and Facts 2 claim that ballistics and DNA evidence have been found by the prosecution-even though such evidence, which would silence much opposition, has not been presented in a court trial though it has been quite some time since DNA analysis has become an accepted process and despite the fact that the most recent trial was in 2010.
Providing proof is not citing a website that agrees with you, it’s providing solid evidence.
Email sent.
Have innocent people been executed in Georgia before? They have in Texas…
Indeed, having abolished the death penalty is a prerequisite for joining the EU.
@Ed 46
All I see in your link is a bunch of words. Anybody can type words.
I’m also on the other side of the world, but Amnesty petition signed, change.org petition signed, signs waved outside local US consulate.
National radio is keeping everyone posted. The world really is watching the US on this.
Stories like this are just one of the many, many reasons I keep a notarized copy of the Declaration of Life with my will. It states: “I hereby declare that should I die as a result of a violent crime, I request that the person or persons found guilty of homicide for my killing not be subject to or put in jeopardy of the death penalty under any circumstances, no matter how heinous their crime or how much I may have suffered.”
(Yes, I know it’s from a Quaker website, but the document itself is pretty much secular.)
Ed, where are the citations for your website link?
Fucking horrific.
If only Troy Davis had been a cute white woman making up a bunch of easily debunked stories while driving around in a car stained with corpse juice being prosecuted by a team that couldn’t even tie their shoes. See, THEN, he’d be free to go.
@Butch Kitties
I don’t have a will or living will yet (only 21–although I probably should write one, anyway, since who knows when I’ll need it), but that Declaration of Life is going in it. Thank you for sharing it.
___
I signed the Amnesty International petition. It feels like a useless gesture, but one can only hope.
This is sort of on topic. Rick Perry, who might be our next George W Bush, never lets it bother him when he’s responsible for the execution of an innocent person.
Texas Governor Rick Perry (evolution denier, uneducated moron, Christian asshole) is a murderer.
Olav, you forgot Taiwan and South Korea. Taiwan just called off its four-year moratorium on the death penalty. Both countries are prosperous democracies and this just shows your Eurocentrism. Of course the term “first world” is pretty much useless.
Ing, let me sum up my experiences in three Asian metropolises this way:
Jakarta – free, but chaotic
Singapore – orderly, but unfree
Tokyo – free and orderly
Singapore is a clean, efficient city with a lot of opportunities for academics and business people. But it has a certain oppressive atmosphere, people are reluctant to openly discuss politics etc. For me it would be a dream place to live though, as I would be able to speak three out of its four official languages, there is no other country like that, maybe except for certain cities in the US like New York City, or L.A.
One view of the Death Penalty from Scott Turow, lawyer and author. Illinois had a moratorium on the death penalty through 3 governors (ironically, two of which were convicted of malfeasance in office), finally culminating in the repeal of the Death Penalty this year due to unsolvable problems with it. At one point, more folks on death row were exonerated than were executed. Don’t tell me one trial means anything, especially when witnesses recant eyewitness testimony (which is worthless compared to solid forensic evidence).
Instead of “First World”, let’s use the term “industrialised democracies”. According to Pfft, there are only four of them which still have the death penalty, the US, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, but apparently S.K. hasn’t executed anyone since 1997 and thus is on some kind of moratorium.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_South_Korea)
Yes. I got involved in a similar letter writing campaign the ACLU was promoting here in Ohio about a year or so ago. Similar situation, ridiculously shaky evidence and no reason to execute–or even, possibly, for him to have been convicted at all–except the nuclear emotions and abject ignorance coming from the pro-death penalty cheerleaders. Can’t remember which one and I don’t really have time to look it up (I found it on the ACLU Blog of Rights at the time), but I remember how great it was to get the news on the ACLU mailing list that the governor had grated clemency and our letters were responsible for that!
Unfortunately, this is Ohio and that is Georgia. That may make a pretty big difference in the outcome.
pelamun says:
Now I am confused. What does the fact that they are “prosperous democracies” have to do with anything?
Right, and I didn’t introduce the term into the discussion in the first place. To me, “first world” means what it meant 30 years ago, perhaps the definition has become more fluid and vague. What I said was much clearer, I think: “Civilised and non-backward countries do not execute people, period. It is pretty much a defining characteristic.”
Have I just offended the Taiwanese or the South Koreans with that, by calling them uncivilised and backward? Well, if the shoe fits… But I am sure that those people in Taiwan and South Korea who do oppose capital punishment (thankfully, thinking people are everywhere, even if they aren’t heard) would agree that their countries/societies still have a way to go toward a more enlightened penal system. Unfortunately, morons are in the majority everywhere, and they vote. It takes a lot of time to turn those around.
By the way, I am not saying that a ban on the death penalty is the only defining characteristic of a civilised country. A country without the death penalty can still have many other things wrong with it of course.
Your accusation of eurocentrism is facile and ridiculous. People in South Korea do not want to be innocently executed, or have their loved ones executed, any more than people in Europe. These are truly universal values.
@ David Marjanović, OM –
There’s a case to be made for Jack Alderman, though I’m not up on all the details.
@anarchic teapot
I would tell the board that, and that they’ll give the world a worse impression of the US than already exists.
I really, really hope this is one of those one-in-a-million shots that just might work.
By Euro-centrism I mean that you would only mention the US and only in a way mention Japan amongst your listing of countries that count. That’s Euro-centrism, plain and simple.
Now, I’m cross-posting this from the TET, from a very constructive discussion I had with Walton over there.
Regarding the death penalty, I used to think that as long as it was democratically backed, it would be hard to oppose. Of course Personally I’m happy that no member state in the EU has it, and aware with the many problems it has, especially in the US.
For instance, there are groups in Taiwan, that regard Western groups coming into the country and lecturing them on human rights as an act of cultural imperialism (just recently when the Schengen countries were considering whether to grant Taiwanese citizens visa-free travel, something the UK has done much earlier, the death penalty was brought up as a bargaining chip). The Taiwanese are fiercely proud of their hard-won democracy (problematic as it may be) and they didn’t fight for it so that Westerners could come in and tell them what to do. I’m not sure if you even can argue with the universality of human rights in this case as long as the US still has it (and the Supreme Court continues not to regard it as cruel punishment).
I now think just because of the irreversible error argument alone all countries should strive to abolish it, but one has to be careful when doing this kind of advocacy lest one fall into the trap of being accused of cultural imperialism. Most countries that still have it are in Asia and Africa, and they don’t like this kind of lecturing.
I mean if for this:
you can come up only with the US and Japan, yes then you’re Euro-centric…
Happy to see Pharyngula/PZ Myers opposing the death penalty.
:-)
Humans killing one another is in a different category of behavior to animals killing each other.
Animals dont transcend evolution by making atomic bombs.
Animals dont commit “murder”
@Ed: How does Davis “act guilty”? The law doesn’t recognize “acting guilty” or even “acting suspiciously” as substantial evidence in a criminal case. Besides, the point is that he shouldn’t be killed, not that he should immediately be released from prison because the jury was wrong.
Crap, people are going off on a tangent about which countries are first world or not and it’s all my fault. What I really should have said is developed. Based on the more correct definition of first world, there are 3 other nations that have the death penalty: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. These are places where you have to be a mass murderer to get the death penalty. Certainly, among first world nations, the US is the worst, even though Japan’s executions are all hangings.
If you expand the definition to include developed nations you get Singapore and a few others. Singapore seems to be worse than us as far as the death penalty goes. They kill more people per capita and many of the people they kill are mere drug users!
But I should address this from @Olav:
If you defined civilized nation as a nation that doesn’t have the death penalty, then by definition no civilized nations have the death penalty. This is called a circular argument. In this case, you can’t say the US the only civilized country to use the death penalty since obviously the US isn’t civilized.
pinkboi, I think the way Olav worded it was not really constructive in any way, and also his arrogant statement defining what a civilised country is and what not did not help matters either.
Now back on topic:
it seems like S. Korea is on a moratorium right now. Japan was on one when it had a justice minister who used to be an anti-death penalty activist (in Japan any execution has to be signed off on by the justice minister), but this ended after a new minister took up the post, and in Taiwan likewise there was a moratorium which ended a year ago (also involving a justice minister who did not want to sign off on death warrants but was told by the govt that she would be legally obliged to do so).
Unfortunately, the War on Drugs in SE Asia (and Taiwan, too) has resulted in a fierce “death to traffickers” stance shared by many governments (Australians will be familiar with the Bali Nine). Do you actually have any sources for your claim that Singapore also executes drug users? I think it is only applied to traffickers. I find this deplorable, especially since you never know what people can smuggle into your luggage (one of the defences Schappelle Corby tried), but this topic is quite sensitive, especially in a culturally Chinese context with the Opium War not yet forgotten. In Indonesia prosecution of drug users and traffickers is a national priority overseen by the president’s office, and if you get caught up in a drug case in Indonesia, you cannot bribe your way out of it like you could in other cases.
#73
My mistake. They only punish traffickers. Although a user with sufficient stash can always be deemed a trafficker.
pelamun says:
No. Not “countries that count” but rather “countries that count as comprising the so-called First World”. Of course with the changing situation in the world (disappearance of the communist bloc and other events) the term has lost its meaning. That is why it is so useless now. As it probably always was.
pelamun says:
I’m glad you are using past tense. I’ll go as far as this: a country that has the death penalty isn’t truly a democracy. It isn’t enough for a political system to be supported by a majority of the people to be called a democracy. Minorities and opposition need to be respected and they need to have a voice. There needs to be a free press. The state needs to have checks and balances, and an independent judiciary. No torture, corporal or capital punishment must exist. Only then can you reasonably say that you have a democratic state.
pelamun says:
You mean their politicians and bigwigs don’t like it. But the feelings of politicians and bigwigs do not need any consideration.
Again, people around the world do not want to be executed for crimes they have not committed. And that happens, inevitably, wherever the death penalty is practiced. People also do not want to be executed for crimes that would earn them only a couple of years in prison in some other jurisdiction (simple drugs traficking etc.).
And everywhere around the world there are people who realise that you really can’t improve a society by treating convicts harshly, or by causing other collateral damage. It is not cultural imperialism or eurocentrism to want to morally support those people.
Sorry to be pedantic, but they PUNISH users too, and harshly at that, you’re always looking at several years of prison. (A Japanese student was once nabbed at the Atambua border station near Timor Leste, it was a very very small amount of hashish, and he was sent to prison for 10 months or so. The only time to bribe the Indonesian police would have been before they reported it to their higher-ups, once a drug case is in the system, there is no recourse unlike with other types of offences).
If you’re going on vacation in SE Asia, just stay away from drugs, it’s just not worth it.
Read my post, Olav. It’s not just their bigwigs.. In a democratic society such as Taiwan, the death penalty has support across society. The groups I mentioned that were upset about Westerners lecturing them on the issue were ordinary citizens. It is probably good to support groups working for abolition, but your stance just comes off as reeking too much of Western superiority, which would be counterproductive for your goal.
Yes, there was a case just recently in Taiwan where an airman who was executed in the 90s was found to be innocent after all. His family will receive $3.4 million in compensation, and we will probably see a slow-down in executions in Taiwan after this.
Pinkboi:
I don’t. I said I consider it to be a defining characteristic.
Quite true.
You would not hear me saying that the USA is a (fully) civilised country.
It’s a shame because many people around the world expect better from the US. For instance, do not teach creationism in schools, and do not execute people who are in prison.
From way back up at the top:
Well, that is the situation we all find ourselves in, nonetheless. Unless you’d rather be a hermit, I suppose.
I refer the honourable members to the answer I gave previously in the Perry thread –
“I have a Modest Proposal regarding applying the death penalty; they get to have their YeeHaaa! fun… but if (or perhaps it ought to be ‘when’) the verdict turns out to have been wrong, well then everyone involved in the miscarriage of justice is executed, no appeals. The investigating police, the DA, the judge, the jury, the prosecuting lawyer, the state governor, all of them. Might as well add any media people that joined in the campaigning for an execution. They’re all in favour of people being responsible for their actions, aren’t they?”
I would like to at this time modify that previous statement to include parole board. That should concentrate their minds om whether the conviction is safe or not…
Sigh…
Troy Davis denied clemency in Georgia
Troy Davis denied (clemency) justice in Georgia
“the case has not been made strongly enough to justify an irrevocable and terminal decision”
I would say the same of EVERY crime; capital punishment is just indefensible.
I didn’t read the comments so not sure if someone’s already posted this, but you can also call Judge Penny Freesemann and leave a message at 912 652 7252. She has the power to directly pull the death warrant.
Over the years I’ve went from supporting the death penalty to deciding I can do without it, unless the evidence is incontrovertible and the crime is particularly heinous. There’s a chance this man is not guilty of this crime, so the death penalty should be off the table.
On the other hand, a little over a year ago my niece and her eight year old son were murdered by the boy’s stepfather. Hacked to death with a machete. He later hanged himself. When we were told that he obviously suffered, I was glad. Personally, I don’t think he suffered enough. If it had been up to me, he would have been slowly, very slowly, tortured to death. I guess that you’re all better human beings than I am. All I think about is a eight year old boy who doesn’t get to grow up and argue about shit in the abstract.
Butch Kitties @57
I ♥ Quakers but:
I hereby declare: I’m dead. Do whatever you want.
@flastaff:
No one is arguing about shit in the abstract. There have been significant miscarriages of justice regarding the death penalty and many cases of innocent people being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Some were executed and some were lucky. This is reality too. You can talk about an eight year old boy who didn’t grow up and I can talk about a innocent man who was executed in ignominy with his life and legacy tainted and his children branded as the seed of a murderer. For every emotional tale on one side there is an equally valid emotional tale on the other, and neither is a valid argument for or against the death penalty. Only facts matter–such as is it effective? (no) Is it a deterrent? (no) Does it have any protective value to society? (no) Is there racial disparity in its application? (yes) Is it possible that innocent people will be executed? (yes) If so, how many? (a lot more than you’d think) Should we be more concerned that the defendant is guilty and might get away with it or that the defendant is innocent and will be state-murdered for a crime he didn’t commit? (the latter: for every innocent person executed a guilty person goes free anyway plus you compound the horror by destroying another innocent life)
My mother indignantly gave me the usual “How would you feel if [insert beloved family member] was murdered!” (I use an exclamation point because that’s never really a question to them.) Such a common exclamation too, as if the anti-death penalty contingent never thought about that. I told her that she is asking not one but two questions: 1) How would I feel and 2) Does the State have a duty to satisfy those feelings? To the first, I would likely be devastated and I may have feelings of vengeance, but to the second I say now and would say then that the State has absolutely no duty to satisfy feelings of vengeance. Besides, I don’t believe in vengeance. My mother at first didn’t want me to take care of her in her old age because she knows how angry I still am at her for her enthusiastic use of corporal punishment when I was a kid, and she was convinced I’d be beating the crap out of her when she was helpless in my care to get back at her. I was aghast–the thought had never crossed my mind, never, not even during our most heated arguments on the subject when I thought I couldn’t hate her more! Vengeance is not only brutal and unjust, it’s also useless. Will hitting her change the past? No. Plus, if I did that I’d be as evil as I believe her to be and I would have absolutely no justification for position if I engaged in such actions myself.
Also, I turned the question around on her. I told her “How would you feel if someone you love got killed, you really pushed and pushed to have the guy who was charged executed, and then found out years afterward due to new evidence that he was innocent all the time and you just took a man away from his own family, destroying his entire identity beyond his physical life, to placate your own feelings? That you have effectively enacted the same horror upon another innocent person that you had had enacted upon yourself? In fact, a worse horror, since at least a murder victim is just physically murdered, but an executed innocent man has his entire identity and legacy destroyed?” I then pointed out that no matter how angry or vengeful I felt, this would always be a huge consideration to me. Far worse to me would be to find out the man they executed was innocent. And there are many victims and victim survivors who feel the same way.
The only way I would ever be in support of the death penalty is if we lived in an alternate universe wherein the death of the guilty resulted in the spontaneous regeneration of the murder victims. In that case, you could make a case that the death penalty is just because keeping the murderer alive keeps his victims dead. And you’d have a direct feedback on whether you killed the right person, because if the condemned is innocent the victims would remain dead and the flaws in the system would be readily visible to everyone.
“That is why it is criminally wrong for the state to kill him for this crime.”
Sorry to disagree with you, PZ, but it would be wrong for Georgia to kill Davis even if he was guilty.
Although to be fair, we are actually a tiny bit ahead of the typical Islamist regime in that what he’s accused of would be a serious crime, in a sane world, if he actually did it.
“I’d feel like the possibility of someone else innocent being murdered just because I was angry would be a terrible insult to their memory.”
It is not wrong to kill him because the case is weak, PZ, it is wrong because NOBODY has the right of terminating a life, even though he would be guilty.
You Americans have a twisted view of Justice…
@Lion IRC:
I hate to break it to you, but humans ARE animals, you fucking moron.
There’s a chance this man is not guilty of this crime
I thought the idea was that if there was reasonable doubt, innocence becomes the default.
I see that has now been perverted into:
If there is reasonable doubt, we just won’t kill you.
sometimes.
*sigh*
Wow, haven’t heard a PZ post about Georgia yet. Thought it would be more along the lines “There are atheists in Georgia too.” Good to see PZ is showing interesting HR issues in such a small faraway country.
Good to see PZ is showing interesting HR issues in such a small faraway country.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/sep/18/rugby-world-cup-2011-england-georgia
Animals dont commit “murder”
hmm.
“the unlawful killing of another human being with “malice aforethought””
ok, so if we are going to compare the animal kingdom on this, we can obviously substitute “human being” with “animal”, I assume that isn’t arguable?
malice or intention?
nope, good documented evidence of dolphins and chimps, for example, killing with intention and forethought.
so, what’s left?
unlawful.
yup, that’s about it.
and what are laws, really but accepted conventions?
*shrug*
I’m with those who maintain that any country with the death penalty is definitionally uncivilised.
@70
You are a fucking moron. Dolphins and chimps commit violence against their own kind (and in dolphins’ cases, against close species like porpoises) all the time. The lion, the very animal you are named for, commits mass infanticide when it takes over a pride from a rival. Stop spouting bullshit.
My mother indignantly gave me the usual “How would you feel if [insert beloved family member] was murdered!”
How would I feel? I’d feel like ripping the accused person’s pancreas out through his or her throat. But that wouldn’t make it RIGHT. No, not even if the person in question was truly guilty.
He is an African American accused of shooting a white police officer in Georgia. Witnesses, evidence, facts… none of that matters.
I would be curious to know the racial make-up of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and how the vote not to grant clemency broke down among the members.
This is exactly why I strongly oppose the death penalty: it is a very final solution (choice of words deliberate.)
@Dianne #99 – I have been asked that same question. My response is, “Would killing someone else bring [beloved family member] back to life?”
I have also asked that question, and gotten the same response you gave. The follow up question is, “And how will you feel the day after, when you learn that you killed an innocent man and that the real killer is still on the loose? Do you just keep killing people until you think you have gotten the right person?”
Depressingly, the questions are not an “Aha!” moment for most people.
Troy Davis deserved Life Without Parole not the Death Penalty. Why? Because he’s guilty of murder. Don’t show up 22 years after the crime, listen to the Davis family, then declare he’s innocent. I just wish the MacPhail family didn’t need this in order to get closure.
The European Council and the European Parliament are now appealing to the US on behalf of Troy Davis, saying that there are “serious doubts” about his guilt.
Dang, blockquote failure #104 (computer sluggish again so didn’t preview). The first sentence quotes Ed, the rest is my response.
I’m not very optimistic, but at least they are making an effort.
I only wish there were more efforts to push US to get rid of the death penalty altogether.
The follow up question is, “And how will you feel the day after, when you learn that you killed an innocent man and that the real killer is still on the loose? Do you just keep killing people until you think you have gotten the right person?”
Like shit, of course. How else could one feel at that point? Ready to do it again to the “right” person, perhaps only to find that s/he was innocent too?
I’ve been fortunate enough not to lose anyone I’m close to to murder. So far. That I know of anyway. But if I did, I suspect that I might be less interested in taking revenge on the individual and more in taking revenge on whatever allowed the murderer to act. Like, say, easy access to guns. So I’d be more likely to become a fanatic anti-gun nut, possibly to the point of illegal acts than revenge on an individual. But I don’t really know for sure and hope never to find out.
@Gregory: The other point being that I think it’s perfectly normal for the victims of a crime, including the secondary victims, to feel angry and vengeful about the perpetrator of a crime and to want revenge on him or her. But that doesn’t make seeking revenge right. That’s why we have a legal system instead of allowing people to run around “fighting crime” on their own. The victim is not the best person to decide the fate of an accused criminal. They have too much personal interest and can’t think straight about it.
Is Ed that talking horse that was on TV years ago, or just its arse?
Transcend evolution? What does that even mean?
Having someone close to you murdered is a traumatic event. Trauma changes the way your brain functions. If my partner or an immediate family member was murdered, I would probably want the person who did it to die. But that shouldn’t matter. The immediate wake of a traumatizing event is not when I want to make important decisions like whether or not I support the death penalty. My brain simply wouldn’t be up to the task.
@104 – He won’t be.
@109 – Yes
@41 – “White cop, black suspect, in Georgia. You do the math.” I live in Savannah and did some math. 7 black jurors, 5 White.
@55 – Ditto. So is everything you have read in support of Davis. All a bunch of words meant to create doubt.
Life without parole, not “Free Troy Davis”.
You sound like a fanatic, Ed.
You had better think twice. Similar convictions with recanting eyewitnesses in Illinios have been overturned and the real murderers later convicted. And I believe there was a simlar case where the executed was pardoned posthumously. Are you willing to die if that is the case? But then, you don’t think about truth, just getting revenge. What a fuckwit.
Ed sounds like he really needs to sit down and watch “The Thin Blue Line”.
Any news?
Without knowing much about this case or reading the comments yet, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess he’s probably NotaWhiteGuy(TM).
What do I win?
Oh I saw it on the TET, the execution is scheduled for 7pm EST.
A theoretical question, I know Obama won’t do it, but could the President pardon him? Or does the pardoning power of the President only affect federal cases?
tim rowledge@ 80:
Don’t forget to comb the local “Letters to the Editor” pages for all the locals who supported the execution. =) Let’s clean house!
Oh so it says in the Constitution
Probably a good thing for Pres. Obama politically.
How could executing a man whose guilt is so much in doubt possibly provide any closure to anyone?
@Ed:
I don’t think anyone here is saying “Free Davis.” But with so much possible reasonable doubt, the last thing they should be doing is executing this man.
@pelamun:
If that’s the case, soon as I go home I’m calling up the White House switchboard. I don’t frickin’ care if it goes nowhere. This is an atrocity and a complete perversion of justice. Should anyone be able to prevent this from happening, it would be Obama. Justice will not be served if Troy Davis is executed tonight.
Katherine, Troy Davis wasn’t convicted in federal court, so probably he can’t pardon him? At least that’s my understanding. Advocacy work would be focusing on the President if he had that power.
And that’s why I said it’s good for him politically that he can’t influence the case, as it would be a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-he-doesn’t situation…
@pelamun:
So the only thing that can be done is sit on our hands and wait for the state of Georgia to kill a man whose guilt has been thrown into doubt.
Well, fuck. This country sucks.
Hmm, I had to think about that for a moment. Death penalty for a letter to newspaper? Seemed harsh but then I realized it is a deliberate, malicious act and therefore, “string’em up!”
I suppose that to avoid gaming of the system one might have to offer substantial bounties to support gathering of evidence- and I don’t mean paying dodgy ‘witnesses’.
Troy Davis wasn’t convicted in federal court, so probably he can’t pardon him?
Maybe not, but Obama could at least show as much decency as the EU did and condemn this travesty, even if he can’t actually stop it.
That is a waste of time. This is a state case. The Federal Judiciary is only intetested in that his constitutional rights were respected during arrest, trial, etc. Call the Governor of Georgia, but don’t expect anything.
Katherine, what really shocked and appalled me was how the Supreme Court eventually refused to hear his case, effectively condemning him as the stance of the Georgia Board of Parole is well-known.
Dianne, is there precedent for the President commenting on a state matter? I don’t think any state would welcome federal intervention where there is no federal jurisdiction.
And even a Democratic president cannot afford to appear soft on crime, especially one who wants to get re-elected. I actually don’t know Obama’s personal stance on the death penalty, though I hope he is personally appalled by this farce as most of us are..
is there precedent for the President commenting on a state matter?
If Obama has no jurisdiction in the matter, he has at least as much right to make an appeal as heads of state in Europe or for that matter any other non-Georgian US-American. Why shouldn’t he call the parole board and ask them to reconsider? Not demand, not threaten, just request.
And even a Democratic president cannot afford to appear soft on crime, especially one who wants to get re-elected. I actually don’t know Obama’s personal stance on the death penalty, though I hope he is personally appalled by this farce as most of us are.
And if he isn’t willing to take a stand, what use is it having a Democrat rather than a Republican in power anyway? I know this is an eternal question that won’t be solved here, but really how much compromise is too much? What does it matter whether he’s appalled or not if he isn’t willing to act? What good is he if he can’t act?
So, if the argument is “no capital punishment because innocent people die,” then should we not also abolish life imprisonment and prisons in general given the sheer number of innocent people that die in prison? Not only that, but many of them are tortured by other inmates or even guards before death.
Because Obama is not just any American, whatever he does reflects on the institution of the Presidency. Infringing upon state jurisdiction is a sensitive issue.
About your last point: well a president has to choose his battles. In the situation he is in, he can’t spend political capital on this case, I think (and let’s not forget Dukakis and Huckabee). He has always been a centrist president, though recently he has been sounding tougher on certain issues. I know a lot of the Democratic base is disappointed, but that same base has to decide next year if that disappointment is worth a Tea Party-backed Republican president.
leonateo says:
It’s not the only argument.
Perhaps not abolish it. But I think it should be an extremely rare punishment, only for the most extreme cases. Multiple/mass/serial murderers, war criminals, that sort of thing.
The fact that such atrocities are allowed to take place inside prisons is a bloody shame. People in prison should be safe.
The ultimate argument is that as a general rule killing should always be impermissible, except to save innocent lives. Other forms of killing are perversions.
But yes, the risk of executing innocent people makes it worse. Imagine being on death row for a crime that someone else committed.
If the alternatives are death penalty, prison and freedom then prison is the lesser evil in my opinion. You will never find a satisfactory solution to a fundamentally bad and unsatisfactory situation such as it is when someone has been murdered.
In Western Europe nowadays, even life without parole is considered a cruel punishment.
If you want to lock up a criminal for life, most states have special legal procedures in place contingent upon the person in question being a danger to society or not.
Ironically Davis’ insistence that he gets to take a polygraph test makes me more likely to think that he’s guilty.
If after that long time in prison he doesn’t know that polygraphs are lies not lie detectors something’s wrong. And if he does know, the only reason to take the test if to project a false image of innocence.
There’s the rub.
“I would never do something so horrible, so I would never end up on death row.”
“Well, perhaps he didn’t exactly do this crime, but he wouldn’t have been convicted if there wasn’t a reason to do so. He’s on death row, so he must be guilty, because the death penalty is there to punish and discourage crime.”
–o–
My, but it’s easy to switch of the brain and spout idiocy. I should run for president. My birth certificate says explicitly that I’m not born in Kenganda. And I even have a baptismal certificate, so I can’t be muslin.
Sili says:
But if he is innocent and knows that lie detectors are bullshit, he may still propose it out of hope that perhaps it will convince someone who does believe in these fake machines of his innocence, improving his chance of getting a new trial.
People who are desperate and see no way out tend to cling to such straws. There is absolutely no need to hold it against him.
Guilt should be decided based on the facts, not on suspicions or on the failure to understand someone’s motives.
Currently another temporary stay which might last only minutes or might put the execution on hold again. Perhaps the torture Davis undergoes being told again and again that he will be killed on day X will make people demanding revenge happy?
One of the major problems the Tribune investigations into the death penalty kept finding was inexperienced and overworked defense attorneys. The only way to make the system approximate fairness was for the taxpayers to pony up extra public defender money for experienced and not overworked defense attorneys. The prosecuter’s didn’t like that at all, for some bizarre reason.
@ Akira MacKenzie #92.
You just devalued the lives of Troy Davis and his prison executioner(s) and everyone else involved (police, judges, juries,) to the status of animals…simply doing “what animals do”.
.
@ ichthyic #96.
The irony meter kicked in when you mentioned “good documented evidence” about animals
executingkilling each other in a thread about the failure of empirical evidence/science to resolve Troy Davis’ innocence. He deserves the benefit of the doubt. There’s a lesson about what constitutes “evidence” for all skeptics here..
@Hazuki #98.
Thanks for contributing to my confirmation bias. A bit of reassurance is nice. Do you understand that female lions (lionesses FYI) dominate the pride NOT the male? Females provide (the lions share of) the prides food. Males get kicked out upon maturity. Males are actually slower and less agile than the females.
Like the two posters above, you have done the equivalent of saying “So What?” to PZ Myers’ Op
Infanticide/abortion/capital punishment…yawn…not a moral issue at all – “see even lions do it”
Well, it’s over.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/sep/21/troy-davis-execution-tweets?intcmp=239
Nope.
The entire proceedings, beginning to end, reeked of primate tribalism.
@ Nerd
Justice Ginsburg agrees with you.
Whether you get the death penalty is not a function of how guilty you are, how heinous your crime was. It’s a function of how privileged you are, full stop.
The irony meter kicked in when you mentioned “good documented evidence” about animals executing killing each other in a thread about the failure of empirical evidence/science to resolve Troy Davis’ innocence.
either your irony meter, or your brain, is busted.
I lean towards the latter.
How long before the made-for-TV-movie.
Can they do it before the X-mas sweeps?
““Well, perhaps he didn’t exactly do this crime, but he wouldn’t have been convicted if there wasn’t a reason to do so. He’s on death row, so he must be guilty, because the death penalty is there to punish and discourage crime.”
Sigh…. And I thought that all readers in this blog had a minimum of brain mass…
@ichthyic
It’s the latter. I can supply links if you need them.
The simple reason why he was executed after 22 years of appeals is that he was obviously guilty as hell. There were several eye witnesses. This did not happen in the middle of nowhere, it was in the parking lot of a busy Burger King.
The guy was a cold blooded killer.
We trust the eye witnesses when they say Davis was the killer…but not when they say he wasn’t or that the police pressured them.
This is, sadly, old news now, but for those of you who are interested in finding out whether the American justice system is really as unfit for purpose as Troy Davis’ legal team and journalists would have you believe, you need to read the decision of Judge Moore in the ‘actual innocence’ hearing held before the Federal District court.
This is the first 62 pages and
this is pages 63 to 174.
Yes, it’s long, and it’s dense, and it’s hard work.
But – you don’t want to be commenting on such an important topic from a position of ignorance, now do you?
Jorge,
Funny you should bring that up …
–o–
Moshe Averick,
So was Saddam Hussein. We still argue that the death penalty is wrong. We’re not just saying that we should be sure we don’t kill innocent people. We’re saying that is wrong for the State to kill people. Full stop.
Do please read for comprehension.
–o–
“Guilt should be decided based on the facts”. I couldn’t agree more. But polygraph tests are not facts.