Having Once Faced Execution Myself, I Now Raise My Voice in Protest

[FourScore]

Thu Sep 15, 2011 at 03:57 PM PDT
Having Once Faced Execution Myself, I Now Raise My Voice in Protest
by One Pissed Off Liberal

UPDATE: CNN is reporting 663,000 names on petition protesting Troy Davis' execution (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/15/663000-names-on-petition-protesting-troy-davis-execution/)

Since this post is only peripherally about me, I will not go into detail about how I came to be a candidate for execution by the State of Alabama. I've already written about it here, for those who may be curious.

I don't often mention it, it's not my proudest achievement but I make this admission here and now to invoke the unique authority I believe it gives me to address the subject of state-sanctioned execution. Others may disagree with that premise of course, which is their perfect right. But having looked it in the face, I'd wager that I have contemplated the death penalty in ways that many others have not...

SNIP

...Though the prosecution sought the death penalty in my case, the jury convicted me of a lesser, non-capital offense and sentenced me to twenty years in prison instead. But this final outcome came after many long months of living under the shadow of the death penalty, which was only ever invoked in my case because of the political ambition of the District Attorney and the case's potential for publicity. He knew I wasn't guilty and more or less admitted it to me personally in later years.

Whenever there is that potential for hyper-publicity, a case begins to be driven by considerations other than simple guilt or innocence. When a case is capable of feeding the political ambitions of a prosecutor, it is far less likely to terminate in anything approaching actual justice.

The guy who was arrested with me but tried separately was given the death penalty. Now I oppose capital punishment on philosophical as well as practical grounds, but if ever there was a candidate for the death penalty, he was it. He was sent to death row at Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama where some years later his death sentence was commuted to Life. While I support that decision philosophically (however reluctantly) I'll never understand how it came to be made. It wasn't that he was a nice guy or that he wasn't guilty as charged. He wasn't in the first instance and he was in the second, and I know these things from raw personal experience.

I tell you all of this to underscore the capriciousness of the death penalty. I might very well have received it but never deserved it. The jury, who were just twelve ordinary people, could just as easily have agreed with the politically blindered prosecution and ordered me killed. The other fellow's jury did order him killed, and yet he never was. I wonder if he'd have ever slid out from under that death sentence had he been black. There is an undeniable racial component to who actually gets executed in this country. I'm not saying they only execute black people or people of color but the preponderance is overwhelming. That alone is reason enough to ban it.

It is a barbaric practice at any rate. As the old saying goes, why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/15/1017038/-Having-Once-Faced-Execution-Myself,-I-Now-Raise-My-Voice-in-Protest-?via=siderec

[Warpy]

1. Powerful article

I am totally opposed to the death penalty and I come from the other side, a survivor of a murder in the family.

One of my happiest moments came toward the end of Bill Richardson's reign as governor when he signed a bill ending the death penalty in New Mexico.

The need for revenge to the point of state sanctioned murder is visceral and irrational. It is also barbaric.