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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Sep
16
More Action For Troy Davis
Filed Under action alert, courts, human rights, race and racism | Posted by Cara |
Last week I wrote about the case of Troy Davis, a man who is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23rd, despite ample doubt regarding his guilt in the crime of murdering Police Officer Mark MacPhail. I asked you, along with numerous social justice organizations, to call the George State Board of Pardons and Paroles and ask for clemency or commutation of Davis’ sentence. You did, and our calls jammed the phones. But that same day, the Board inexplicably denied clemency and agreed that the state should go forward with his execution.
Amnesty International is now pleading for letters and emails to be sent to the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The Board, though they are not scheduled to meet on the matter again, can do so. They still have the right and capability to decide that Davis will not be put to death.
I know that there are some out there who believe that Troy Davis is guilty of murdering Officer MacPhail. In reading about this case, I have seen a lot of people get caught up in questions of guilt and innocence. Many seem to think, perhaps naturally, that this is the point.
But Davis’ actual guilt or innocence is not the point. For all I know, Davis may be guilty. It is my personal opinion that he’s innocent. But I could be wrong. I don’t know; I wasn’t there. But we do know that of the people who were there and who testified in Davis’ case, seven of nine have recanted. Several have signed statements that they were intimidated into their testimony by police. We do know that of the two witness who are remaining, one of them is the other principle suspect in the case, who has been implicated in 9 sworn affidavits. We know that Davis is a black man and MacPhail was a white man, and our country has a long, ugly and racist history of executing innocent black men for crimes (and often imagined crimes) against whites. We know that Davis was convicted not based on physical evidence of any kind, but solely on witness testimony, and now that testimony is no longer reliable.
This isn’t about guilt or innocence, it’s about the cornerstone of our legal system – reasonable doubt. Even if Davis were guilty, his execution on the 23rd of September would be a judicial travesty. I say that not only because of my belief that a government that willfully kills its citizens is not one that can be trusted, and that no government could ever be trusted, no matter what precautions are taken, to only execute the guilty. I say it because this case does not even meet the already shaky requirements that our system has for determining that someone ought to be put to death. Even if Davis were a coldblooded murder – and even if the State Board of Pardons and Paroles believed as much with all of their hearts – the evidence, quite simply, is not there. This case is about us having at least as much evidence of innocence as we do guilt. It’s about the unconscionable act of killing a man when we just don’t know the answer.
Time is running out, so send your email and letter today. I think the language that Amnesty has provided is quite good, but if you have the time to edit and personalize it, I urge you to strongly consider doing so. But sending the letter as it is currently written is better than sending no letter at all. And then, get your friends to do the same.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
The Progressive Secretary, a service from progsec.org, had already sent me an email to forward to my governor/rep about Troy Davis. Much of the time I find the letters they compose for us are pretty good, I suggest you give it a try.
Are you able to write a letter if you’re not a resident of the state of Georgia?
Jesse — yes! I imagine that letters from George might hold more weight, but this case has attracted national attention, so please write!!!
I emailed my letter yesterday afternoon, via the Amnesty link, and just received this bounce-back this morning. I hope that is an indicator of the volume of communication they’re receiving.
The site also has a physical address, I’ll go dig up a stamp and envelope…
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Unable to deliver message to the following recipients, due to being unable to connect successfully to the destination mail server.
Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us
Final-Recipient: rfc822;Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us
Action: failed
Status: 4.4.7
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