Michael Maiello's picture

    Death Watch

    By Michael Maiello on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 9:02pm | Politics

    I never even know even the most scant details about most death penalty cases and that I only  take notice when one makes the national news -- that's sad.  In a lot of ways, that's understandable, but it's also, given the magnitude of the punishment that society is about to deliver, unforgivable.

    It's also, at least by my watching of CNN over the last hour, very disturbing to me as an observer of human evolution.  This "death watch" coverage is very bread and circuses. 

    If I can be Stone Column Punk about it:

    It's what I think a classic Greek science fiction writer would imagine how Anderson Cooper would cover a situation where an accused murderer is sitting, perhaps (but we don't know) with the needle that will kill him injected into his arm, while protesters mass outside of the prison (peacably, as they have in years past) and police bring cruisers, battalions with riot gear, and helicopters into the field to counter them.

    It's the modern equivalent of what I imagine the executions and trials of ancient Greece or Rome were like.  Swap crosses and lions for needles and poets for media and I don't see a difference.

    Haven't we evolved?

    Given what little I know about the innocence or guilt of Troy Davis, all I can do is ask again...

    Haven't we evolved?

    Or are we still the same savages that blind Homer described?

    Topics: 
    Politics

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    Yesterday I will always consider the day our 13 year old son became a citizen and an activist.  
     
    He'd shared with me the news of the looming execution of Davis, which he heard about on a local radio station.  He was clearly distraught and felt completely powerless.  
     
    I read up briefly on the case and told him I would take a few minutes during my lunch break and do something, take some action to try to help Troy Davis by adding my tiny voice to the legions of others sharing his distress. And I told him that if I could find a petition we could sign I would try to get home from work before the scheduled execution time of 7:00 pm last night and help him sign it, too, if he wanted to. 
     
    Well, he did sign that petition last night.  And I believe he, too, will never forget yesterday.  The small portion of solace he earned by having done something, small as it was, was nonetheless palpable.  The travesty of "justice" was not averted.  But thousands of people worldwide have honored not only Troy Davis but the nobility humanity is capable of by speaking up and speaking out.  
     
    I don't know if those of us who feel sickened about what happened in Georgia will prevail on this some day, and whether the death penalty will one day be no more.  But we will not be silenced, of that much I am confident.
     
    P.S.'s on this: I had long been against the death penalty outright but in recent years had come to have at least some sympathy for its use in the case of the killing of prison employees by life-termers.  I think I am back to opposing it, unreservedly, in all cases now.  Our Bush v. Gore selectively states' rights SCOTUS predictably declined to issue a stay and hear an appeal.  Our son's doctor, on hearing of his distress about the Davis case yesterday morning, recounted to us a case from his wife's native Norway where a person there who'd been convicted of murdering and then incinerating the wife and children of a citizen is looking at becoming a free man soon on having served on the order of 8 or 10 years. That's ridiculous and offensive in the other direction.  
     
    In the Davis reporting I was struck by a quote attributed to the mother of the police officer allegedly murdered by Davis in 1989, that the various delays were "killing" her with the uncertainty they brought.  I felt sad that this woman (if the report is in fact accurate) had such an investment in Davis losing his life over this.  That she apparently had been unable, for now 22 years, to entirely free herself emotionally to fully affirm her own life apart from whether Troy Davis ultimately lost all the rest of his life, and not just 22 years he'd already lost, as a result of Georgia's determination to execute him.
     

    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 2:55am

    US justice is about what is legal. The slain officer's mother grew up when everyone believed that jury trials were fair and everyone had their day in court. Everyone was equal under the law. A jury of your peers delivering a verdict was just. Only recently have we learned that prosecutors withhold evidence and eyewitness testimony may be questionable.

    The prosecutors in the Davis case legally maintained that Davis was guilty and should die. A jury had already decided that Davis' fate. Once the conviction was confirmed, facts didn't matter to a very large degree. The only thing that matters is if you can find a legal reason that the jury trial was flawed. By this logic, no innocent man or woman has ever been executed because the jury determines guilt. Don't look for truth in court.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 8:33am

    Good points.  But we also provide our president, for federal crimes, and many governors, authority to grant pardons.  My understanding is that they are not required to justify specific decisions at all, let alone based on a consideration that is legally relevant.  Which suggests an intent to provide for the possibility, at least, of a last-ditch safeguard to prevent what appear to be miscarriages of justice. 

    Noted that in this case Georgia law prevented its governor from issuing a pardon and that this was a state criminal matter precluding Obama from legal authority to intervene.  

    I've not researched the relevant statute and arguments offered on both sides to see whether any standards for when clemency may be granted, and not granted, are set forth in the relevant Georgia statute which might properly have precluded Georgia's parole board from doing so, as a legal matter.  My conclusion would be that, if there is no legal mechanism that would have enabled Georgia officials to grant clemency in this case, the criminal justice system Georgia's legislature has created is unjust in this respect.   

    I'd be interested in any public opinion surveys which give a sense of how this issue has been and is now perceived in Georgia, if any readers come across such information.  Public officials should realize it is not a healthy situation when the public perceives a significant gap between what it thinks is just and how it thinks its criminal justice system is actually operating.  I would question one point you made--that in the old days "everyone" believed that jury trials were fair.  In the Atlanta and Georgia context, many African Americans in particular have, since times long predating the childhood of the slain officer's mother, known otherwise.


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 9:51am

     

    Public officials should realize it is not a healthy situation when the public perceives a significant gap between what it thinks is just and how it thinks its criminal justice system is actually operating.

    Oh my dear freaking god that gave me a hearty laugh! 


    by Red Planet on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 10:00am

    That would be one of the key perceptions, if it becomes sufficiently widespread, that I would identify that causes support for, or faith in, the legitimacy of a society's "system", and its future prospects, at a given time to bleed away. 

    Another is the perhaps similarly laughable, badly dated old view that if you worked hard and played by the rules you stood a pretty good chance of being able to find and hold a job that would make ends meet for you and your family. 

    I think that it is the erosion and perhaps obliteration of sustaining beliefs on these two types of concerns--jobs and justice, to oversimplify--that is arguably driving high and growing anxiety levels about the future in the U.S. these days, reflected in part by the high political instability and polarization we see: 

    *the jobs crisis, considered not just as an unemployment or under-employment crisis but in its livable wage and tolerable working conditions dimensions as well; and 

    *what seem to be continuing, perhaps growing, perceptions that there are crooks or bad actors on Wall Street and among the uber wealthy who have been allowed to skate and/or aren't committed in any way to the broad well-being of the society (which of course implicates the criminal justice system's perceived legitimacy or lack thereof).

    Lack of jobs + lack of justice. Body and soul, if you will.  The former implicates peoples' material needs and concerns.  The latter implicates their social values.  That's why I think the jobs and financial reform (the latter of which needs to include justice served to those who broke laws) issues are strategically right now probably the most important ones for anyone seeking the presidency, or a political party seeking majorities in Congress, to be seen by the public as on the side of the angels.


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 10:58am

     

    I know, AD. 

    It was the notion that public officials might be moved to care about public perception that had me rolling on the floor.

    And by the way, the public has known for decades that there is a significant gap between what is just, and what the justice system dispenses.


    by Red Planet on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 1:22pm

    Sorry, rp--if you and I were talking FTF I'd know right away from your body language when to stop on account of preaching to choir...


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 10:29am

     

    But then you wouldn't have been moved to write what you wrote, which was good stuff.

    I couldn't agree more with your focus on jobs and financial reform, including jail time for the Wall Street Crew. Those things seem so remote from anything that's likely to happen now, though, that laughter is the only recourse that preserves my sanity.  


    by Red Planet on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 11:29am

    You are correct everyone should have read "everyone". However there were 7 African-Americans on the Davis jury. All juries tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the prosecution. It is only when the behavior of the prosecutors or police is called into question when African-American juries go against the incarceration flow.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 4:24pm

    There were 7 blacks, 5 whites on the jury that convicted Troy Davis in only 2 hours deliberation, 7 hours to grant prosecutor requests for the death penalty. I don't know if he was guilty, but according to Wiki, he and his buddy both had 38's, Troy apparently shot at a car just before the murder, and his buddy went to the cops the next day after the crime to finger Troy, and Troy left town.

    If anything is learned from this case, jurors need to know there is no 'changing your mind' after a trial is over, and if you sentence someone to death you can't change your mind later. As told in 12 Angry Men, it also should be recognized that it takes all twelve jurors to convict a man of murder.


    by NCD on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 10:27am

    Does it look to you as though there was reasonable doubt that he was the guilty party in this case?  It isn't hard for me to imagine how the jury might not have believed there was. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 10:34am

    If any of them had reasonable doubt they didn't vote that way at the trial, and 20 years after is too late for a juror to say "I wouldn't have voted that way if....".


    by NCD on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 11:03am

    A person who practiced 20 year old medicine using the excuse that it's too late to change would lose their license. Why should a verdict be locked in time? There is no mechanism that easily allows a juror to repeatedly revisit a case of a verdict has been rendered or respond to new facts in a given case. Why should there be a time-lock on a juror's opinion especially when a life is in the balance and new facts are found?


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 4:34pm

    rmrd0000 - Why should a verdict be locked in time?

    Nice thought but I imagine if you think real hard you might be able to come up with some reasons why "there be a time-lock on a juror's opinion".

    If there is no time-lock there is no timely verdict.

    The jury is sequestered in capital cases until a verdict is reached. A juror is supposed to be non-prejudiced, which means they are not supposed to consider any evidence but the evidence legally presented in the courtroom, and they are supposed to discuss the case only with fellow jurors until they reach a verdict. They are not supposed to be influenced by newspapers, radio, friends or anyone else. This is a fundamental basis of the jury trial, of which you appear to be unaware.

    If you really think that equating CDE in medicine, with jurors purportedly changing their minds 20 years later, you are comparing apples and moon rocks. What if 3 of the jurors are dead 20 years later, and another 4 don't want to hear about it anymore? What if a juror says he wants to wait 20 years to give his decision, what does the state do with the alleged murderer in the meantime? Just a few of the complications!


    by NCD on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 2:29pm

    I think you're right on this.  I had initially taken rmrd to be making a broader point about why the criminal justice system, as opposed to just the initial jury, has to lock in an irreversible death penalty course of action, with no possible reconsideration if relevant evidence is brought forward suggesting a need to consider a pardon or clemency.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 2:55pm

     Your last sentence describes an ongoing crime in our country's legal system. The jury may have had reason to believe Davis was guilty but that reason may have been based on lies.

     The current allegation by the defenders of the ex Troy Davis, the once living man who is now dead as a perch-nailed parrot after many years in a cage, is that exculpatory evidence was withheld and supposed witnesses were pressured to lie. Whether that is a fact in this particular case is something I couldn't possibly know for certain, though it certainly has the ring of truth, but anyone who thinks these things don't happen daily in our legal system is as brain-dead as the afore mentioned parrot and apparently were not much smarter on their best day. But, the jurors may have come to the same conclusion that I would have reached based on the "evidence" they were presented with.
     I would absolutely hate having the responsibility of deciding the fate of a person accused of a capital offense and where the evidence led me to believe his guilt but did not offer a high level of certainty. If I had been convinced and then voted for conviction only to later find out that the prosecution had cheated I would despise everyone who had taken part in the deception.
     Could a bright lawyer have a chance of successfully pressing a lawsuit against a prosecutor brought by a juror who suffered severe emotional stress after finding out they had deliberately been made an instrument in the unjust death of an innocent man? Somehow the ones who do this and who therefore are nothing better then death-dealing selectively sociopathic monsters must be made to answer for their crimes and it must be made to happen in this life if it is to happen at all.


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 11:17am

    Could a bright lawyer have a chance of successfully pressing a lawsuit against a prosecutor brought by a juror who suffered severe emotional stress after finding out they had deliberately been made an instrument in the unjust death of an innocent man?

    That's a great question.  I don't know the answer.  You'd think in this lawsuit-happy culture someone has at least tried it, or explored it.


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 11:22am

    Articleman would no doubt know more, but a quick Google search turns up the following facts:

    (1) Prosecutors have prosecutorial immunity.

    (2) That immunity is not absolute.

    Edit to add: that first link is the more informative one. From that I gather that the hypothetical suit would only have validity if the prosecutor was acting illegally, since he was clearly "performing 'advocative' conduct". The key question then, is whether he was "act[ing] within the scope of his duties", which for an illegal act would not be true (I think). Of course, IANAL.


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 11:38am

    Thanks, VA.  In re the obligatory IANAL--have you ever seen anyone use IANALAIDPOOTV?  wink


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 12:17pm

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