On September 21, death row prisoner in the state of Georgia, Troy Davis, was killed by lethal injection. His execution came despite a campaign from around the world in his defence, including by Amnesty International, and protests outside the prison where he was held and across the US. Last-minute legal appeals in the US Supreme Court failed to stop the execution.
Davis was found guilty of the murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 and sentenced to death.
However, there were many weaknesses in the case against him. Amnesty USA said: “The case against [Troy Davis] consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state’s non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony.”
No murder weapon was ever connected to Davis, nor was any DNA evidence presented. A September 22 US Socialist Worker editorial noted: “A former jury member at the trial came forward to say that if she knew then what she knows now, the verdict would have been not guilty.”
The article said: “So many of the factors in Troy’s case are commonplace throughout the criminal justice system. Like the pattern of naked racism: Blacks are around 12 percent of the US population, yet they make up 41 percent of the people who sit on death row.
“Someone accused of killing a white person is five times more likely to be executed than someone accused of killing a Black person, according to a report from the Criminal Justice Project of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.”
The failure of US President Barack Obama to intervene in the case to save Davis’s life caused widespread anger. Edward Dubose, president of the NAACP’s Georgia chapter, said: “The president is the president. If he chose to intervene, he could.”
Right until the end, Davis maintained his innocence. Below is the final message Davis sent to his supporters around the world, in which he calls for the campaign against the death penalty to continue regardless of the outcome of his case.
To All:
I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.
As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand, I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy.
I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.
I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth every day I exist.
So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.
There are so many more Troy Davises. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me, but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.
I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing: “I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”
Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!