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In life, most mistakes can be corrected, most wrongs can be righted, and most questions can be answered. All things in life are subject to change at any given moment, except for one thing...and that is death. Death is constant, once it’s done, there’s no coming back from it.
So, when we stand on some kind of ethical and moral high ground and execute someone convicted of a crime, there better be 110% proof of guilt. If there is the slightest chance of innocence, yet we pull the trigger anyway, we are no better than Syria or Saudi Arabia...bloody butchers.
I don't know if this Davis guy in GA is (was) guilty or not, but there sure is a lot of flap about his likely innocence....perhaps too much. One innocent man executed is one man too many in my opinion. Put them in jail for life, feed him ramen noodles and vitamins, and you can keep the cost of incarceration for 30 years down to about a thousand bucks. This would also be a tragedy; for a potentially innocent man to live this way for the rest of his life, but it can still be corrected.
How soundly would the victims of the crime sleep if in five or ten years from now, new irrefutable evidence exonerated this Troy Davis guy and put someone else at the fault, long after Davis is dead and gone? I don’t know if I would be able to sleep good ever again if I were a party to the execution.
So, my argument is not about the inhumanity of the death penalty, it is about the potential execution of innocence. Davis wasn’t my brother, father, son, or friend. I never met him, and no one I know ever has either; this time. But stay tuned, because it won’t be long before the next Troy Davis comes to your neighborhood and you’ll have to watch with tearful eyes as someone you knew and perhaps even loved as a friend or family member will die from an inaccurate and flawed Judicial System…and you won’t be able to do anything about it.
Those whom favor implementing the death penalty, you might just roll your eyes around as you are reading this, if you even finish it all. But would you still feel that way if you had to watch your son or brother die and you KNEW he was innocent, but were powerless to stop it?
And, of course, we should continue to weep for the original victims. Of course, their loss is still painful to consider. However, my discussion is not about them. It is about adding another potential victim to the list of a yet to be caught killer, who literally got away with murder. No one will EVER seek him out again, because those in power are satisfied with this Neanderthal credo of “doesn’t matter whose blood is shed in payment, anyone’s will do”.
Well, as a member of the greatest society to ever walk the planet, I’m sorry, but that is unacceptable to me. I’ll work on the cures for cancer and hunger another day, but for today, I will continue to champion the cause of eliminating the death penalty, because I doubt our Justice sytem will ever be fully fool proof. And in the application of a sentence that is so absolute and final, THIS society should accept nothing less.
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