The Lantern

Issue date: 7/31/07 Section: Opinion

About a year ago, I listened to a woman give a speech about how she became an anti-death penalty activist. Her brother had been placed on death row in Georgia more than 15 years ago for the death of a white police officer, Mark MacPhail. During the trial, no physical evidence was presented and the nine eyewitness accounts were shaky. Her brother, Troy Anthony Davis, was scheduled to be executed July 17.

In the years since her brother's trial, Martina Correia, along with her family, has mounted a formidable campaign to prove Troy's innocence. They have collected letters of support from a number of famous people, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jesse Jackson Jr. They also have drawn the attention of organizations such as Amnesty International, which investigated Troy's case thoroughly and issued a 35-page report on it in February.

However, this is not all. Following the trial, seven of the nine eyewitnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimonies in sworn affidavits. Of the two who have not recanted, one is alleged to be the real murderer. Some of those who recanted have claimed that they were coerced or pressured by the police into testifying that Troy was the one who committed the murder. Some of the witnesses have even apologized personally to Troy for the false testimony they gave.

This would seem like enough to cast a serious doubt on whether Troy committed the crime and should, one would think, stop the execution immediately. However, a law passed after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing rendered the new testimony inadmissible. The law was supposed to put an end to "frivolous appeals of death sentences," according to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, one of the bill's sponsors. As a result, Troy has remained on death row.

On July 16, one day before he was to be executed, the state granted Troy a 90-day stay of execution in a last-minute hearing. A number of leaders from the black community and the human rights movement turned out to show support. And, for the time being, Troy is still alive but still on death row.

I realize that to many people the death penalty does not seem that bad. People who do bad things are executed, that is it. But, if one actually follows the executions that happen in this country and in this state, as I do, one sees a justice system that looks flawed and clumsy and run by politicians for their own purposes. It should not take Amnesty International, Jesse Jackson and Desmond Tutu to get someone a fair trial. Unfortunately, those are the realities of the justice system in this country, especially if one is poor, black or both.

In Ohio, Christopher Newton was recently executed for killing a cellmate because of a chess game. He had been in prison for a robbery and committed the murder with the hope that he would get the death penalty. His execution took more than 90 minutes as the executioners searched for a vein in which to place the IV for the lethal injection. They apparently had to let him up at one point in order to give him a bathroom break. This is what the death penalty really looks like. It is a barbaric process that is undergone not to deliver justice but to appease political forces who from time to time want to see someone die. I challenge anyone to pay attention to the trials of those killed in the name of justice and be convinced that that is what we are really doing.

Bo Chamberlin is a senior in economics and math. He can be reached at chamberlin.32@osu.edu.

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