Troy Davis

[AsburySkinsFan]

It does for some. I am not saying the death penalty always from our justice system. But it is has worked.

So do lynch mobs, and shooting people on the street, but that doesn't mean that civilized societies use them.

I think we still have too much old west cowboy ideology in American culture...gotta be tough and kill people to show you mean business, can't be like those limp wristed Europeans.

['Skins_&_'Stons]

If Rick Perry becomes POTUS, executions will be nationally televised in a style not unlike the movie Idiocracy. I weep for this country.

The act of killing him is revenge, it serves no other purpose.

Once again the courts have been wrong plenty of times before and they will continue to be wrong, he may or may not have been innocent but innocent people have been executed before and I have no doubt that innocent men will be executed in the future if the current system continues on this path. That is simply unacceptable in my mind.

[Kosher Ham]

So do lynch mobs, and shooting people on the street, but that doesn't mean that civilized societies use them.

I think we still have too much old west cowboy ideology in American culture...gotta be tough and kill people to show you mean business, can't be like those limp wristed Europeans.

Violent criminals killed...(EDIT) or do you prefer executed ?

No way let us pay for them to live for...screw the years...xxxxxx dollars later. Nope.

[adam@section118]

Are you saying that the jury and the court system can never be wrong? Do you think eye witness testimony, especially now that several have recanted their story, is enough to execute someone?

I'm not arguing his innocence. I'm arguing that the evidence provided is not enough to hand out death sentences over. Shouldn't a death sentence be given when it is beyond doubt that the person committed the crime? Say a John Allen Mohammad or a Sedley Alley.

Well said.

I am pro-daeth penalty, but only in 100% cases (not 99%, not 98%) like the home invasion murder trail, or the DC sniper

---------- Post added September-22nd-2011 at 09:17 AM ----------

He made his peace a long time ago... as a black man, this infuriates me but at the same time... this could've been anyone of us. I won't bother with this the racial thing today....

I do not see any race issues at all.

A messed up legal system, but race issue...not so much

[TimmySmith]

Are you saying that the jury and the court system can never be wrong? Do you think eye witness testimony, especially now that several have recanted their story, is enough to execute someone?

I'm not arguing his innocence. I'm arguing that the evidence provided is not enough to hand out death sentences over. Shouldn't a death sentence be given when it is beyond doubt that the person committed the crime? Say a John Allen Mohammad or a Sedley Alley.

Reasonable doubt is not beyond doubt. Davis presented no exculpatory evidence, and no alibi. As far as the recanting of testimony, only some of the recanters did so under oath, none recanted in a court and very little of the "recanting" was actually "recanting" and the rest was "I can't remember".

[twa]

Are you saying that the jury and the court system can never be wrong? Do you think eye witness testimony, especially now that several have recanted their story, is enough to execute someone?

I'm not arguing his innocence. I'm arguing that the evidence provided is not enough to hand out death sentences over. Shouldn't a death sentence be given when it is beyond doubt that the person committed the crime? Say a John Allen Mohammad or a Sedley Alley.

insert reasonable and you have our system

the recanting did not change the facts or overwhelming testimony

some of ya'll are not being reasonable,instead are allowing things other than the facts of this case to sway you.

[Destino]

Violent criminals killed...(EDIT) or do you prefer executed ?

No way let us pay for them to live for...screw the years...xxxxxx dollars later. Nope.

Life without parole is cheaper than killing someone... or do you prefer execute.

[Kosher Ham]

Life without parole is cheaper than killing someone... or do you prefer execute.

Because of the 22 years ? Because of the length of the process ?

That is the only reason.

[SkinInsite]

Because of the 22 years ? Because of the length of the process ?

That is the only reason.

So what's a reasonable appeal process or is it off with their heads once convicted.

[Botched]

I always thought a sentence of life without parole was a much worse penalty than execution.

If I ever get a life sentence, somebody please put a bullet in my head on the way out of the courtroom. Thanks.

[mistertim]

So what's a reasonable appeal process or is it off with their heads once convicted.

Yeah I'm kind of wondering what alternative Kosher Ham would prefer. No appeals? No retrials or consideration of new evidence? I can't even imagine how bad some already overzealous prosecutors and cops could get if that were the case. All you have to go is cobble together enough to convince a jury and then its straight to the chair a week later?

[Destino]

Because of the 22 years ? Because of the length of the process ?

That is the only reason.

The point is your argument was factually inaccurate. Not that facts seem to matter much in this case. After all we're saying that when 77% of eyewitnesses change their story, that it's not reasonable to doubt the conclusion of a jury. This case isn't about the death penalty being right or wrong, it's about our system of justice being so damn obsessed with it's rule book that it can't come to reasonable conclusions.

This threat of injustice has come about because the lower courts have misread the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a law I helped write when I was in Congress. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, I wanted to stop the unfounded and abusive delays in capital cases that tend to undermine our criminal justice system.

With the effective death penalty act, Congress limited the number of habeas corpus petitions that a defendant could file, and set a time after which those petitions could no longer be filed. But nothing in the statute should have left the courts with the impression that they were barred from hearing claims of actual innocence like Troy Davis’s.

It would seem in everyone’s interest to find out as best we can what really happened that night 20 years ago in a dim parking lot where Officer Mark MacPhail was shot dead. With no murder weapon, surveillance videotape or DNA evidence left behind, the jury that judged Mr. Davis had to weigh the conflicting testimony of several eyewitnesses to sift out the gunman from the onlookers who had nothing to do with the heinous crime.

A litany of affidavits from prosecution witnesses now tell of an investigation that was focused not on scrutinizing all suspects, but on building a case against Mr. Davis. One witness, for instance, has said she testified against Mr. Davis because she was on parole and was afraid the police would send her back to prison if she did not cooperate.

So far, the federal courts have said it is enough that the state courts reviewed the affidavits of the witnesses who recanted their testimony. This reasoning is misplaced in a capital case. Reading an affidavit is a far cry from seeing a witness testify in open court

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/opinion/01barr.html

not only is Bob Barr saying that the investigation was crap, but that the way the courts applied a law he helped write was incorrect.

With all that we're supposed to view this execution as justice? Sorry but that's ridiculous. A bunch of death penalty cheer leaders are defending this because they like the death penalty. No reasonable human being could look at any of this and not see serious cause for doubt. Oddly enough it's cases like this that will lead to the death penalty being phased out even more and eventually abolished.

[No Excuses]

the recanting did not change the facts or overwhelming testimony

How much confidence do you have in eye witness testimony?

A meta-analytic review of the weapon focus effect

http://web.augsburg.edu/~steblay/WeaponFocusMetaAnalysis.pdf

The 19 sets of data came from 12 empirical reports representing 2,082 subjects, and the review covered studies available as of March 1991. The analysis demonstrated a significant overall difference between weapon-present and weapon-absent conditions, with weapon presence leading to reduced identification accuracy. The size of the effect, however, was small (.13) for the dependent measure of lineup identification and moderate (.55) for feature accuracy. Data supported the hypothesized weapon focus effect. Theoretical implications of the findings for crime scene investigation and complexity are discussed, as well as factors that appear to mediate and facilitate the weapon focus effect. Appendixes contain supplemental study data. 16 references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_identification#cite_note-30

The effect of stress on eyewitness recall is one of the most widely misunderstood of the factors commonly at play in a crime witness scenario.[30] Studies have consistently shown that the presence of stress has a dramatically negative impact on the accuracy of eyewitness memory, a phenomenon which is often not appreciated by witnesses themselves. In a seminal study on this topic, Yale psychiatrist Charles Morgan and a team of researchers tested the ability of trained, military survival school students to identify their interrogators following low- and high-stress scenarios. In each condition, subjects were face-to-face with an interrogator for 40 minutes in a well-lit room. The following day, each participant was asked to select his or her interrogator out of either a live or photo lineup. In the case of the photo spread – the most common form of police lineup in the U.S. – those subjected to the high-stress scenario falsely identified someone other than the interrogator in 68% of cases, compared to only 12% from the low-stress scenario.[31

What does it say about the facts that implicated Davis when the same people down the road proved to be unreliable and a form of evidence, that has time and time again proven to be prone to a good degree of error?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_identification

Justice Brennan also observed that "At least since United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 (1967), the Court has recognized the inherently suspect qualities of eyewitness identification evidence, and described the evidence as "notoriously unreliable".[2] The Innocence Project, a non-profit organization which has worked on using DNA evidence in order to reopen criminal convictions that were made before DNA testing was available as a tool in criminal investigations, states that "Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing." [3] In the United Kingdom, the Criminal Law Review Committee, writing in 1971, stated that cases of mistaken identification "constitute by far the greatest cause of actual or possible wrong convictions".[4]

[twa]

"Reading an affidavit is a far cry from seeing a witness testify in open court"

indeed....that is why the JURY heard and saw the testimony in court ....thanks for pointing out the weakness of the defense

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

I always thought a sentence of life without parole was a much worse penalty than execution.

If I ever get a life sentence, somebody please put a bullet in my head on the way out of the courtroom. Thanks.

That's goes with the whole bull**** about being the death penalty being a deterrent. If someone is to the point of killing someone else, are they really going to stop and think "Well I'll definitely get life in prison if I do this, but I might also get the death penalty so I shouldn't do it." Give me a break.

[Kosher Ham]

Geez, guys.

I believe in the appeal option, I certainly want new evidence presented to prove innocence and thus a new trial.

This guy was a criminal and a violent one at that.

[Destino]

"Reading an affidavit is a far cry from seeing a witness testify in open court"

indeed....that is why the JURY heard and saw the testimony in court ....thanks for pointing out the weakness of the defense

Testimony those witnesses have now signed off as saying was FALSE. So you don't think having 77% false eye witness testimony impacts the conclusion of a jury? Of course you know it does but we have a SYSTEM and the rules and stupidity of that system is so much more important than truth and justice.

[Kosher Ham]

That's goes with the whole bull**** about being the death penalty being a deterrent. If someone is to the point of killing someone else, are they really going to stop and think "Well I'll definitely get life in prison if I do this, but I might also get the death penalty so I shouldn't do it." Give me a break.

You can not imagine ever being in a situation where you may have to kill someone ? I am sorry. If someone rapes one of my sisters or mother...I would not have a problem with dying for that.

[No Excuses]

Testimony those witnesses have now signed off as saying was FALSE. So you don't think having 77% false eye witness testimony impacts the conclusion of a jury? Of course you know it does but we have a SYSTEM and the rules and stupidity of that system is so much more important than truth and justice.

I'm getting this from the wiki entry but it seems like after the Bob Barr piece (written in 2009) you posted, some of the witnesses did recant their story in court in front of a Judge instead of just providing an affidavit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis_case#Federal_hearing

In response to the Supreme Court order, a two-day hearing was held in June 2010 in a federal district court in Savannah in front of Judge William Moore.[102][103] Former prosecution witness Antoine Williams stated he did not know who had shot MacPhail, and that because he was illiterate he could not read the police statements he had signed in 1989.[104] Other prosecution witnesses, Jeffrey Sapp and Kevin MacQueen testified that Davis had not confessed to them as they had stated at the initial trial.[105] Darrell Collins also recanted his previous evidence that he had seen Davis shoot Cooper and MacPhail.[104] The witnesses variously described their previous testimony against Davis as being the result of feeling scared, of feeling frightened and pressured by police or to get revenge in a conflict with Davis.[104][105] Anthony Hargrove testified that Redd Coles had admitted the killing to him

[Kosher Ham]

I think people do not understand what a recant is here.

All it is, is saying I can't confirm, not that it wasn't.

Not that it was someone else.

[Madison Redskin]

Davis was undoubtedly at the murder scene with a friend. The day after the murder, whereas Davis’ friend voluntarily walked into a police station and cooperated with police, Davis skipped town. Now, I don’t know if Davis was guilty, but that looks bad.

[No Excuses]

I think people do not understand what a recant is here.

All it is, is saying I can't confirm, not that it wasn't.

I think people do not understand that handing out the death penalty based purely on eye witness testimony, especially one that "can't be confirmed" (in your words) is absolutely ridiculous, and in actuality a massive blow to the pro death penalty stance. Not many are arguing for his innocence. But even pro death penalty advocates like Bob Barr (and myself) have an issue with it when it is delivered based on very underwhelming evidence.

[jpyaks3]

You can not imagine ever being in a situation where you may have to kill someone ? I am sorry. If someone rapes one of my sisters or mother...I would not have a problem with dying for that.

You are proving his point, in your case death penalty or not you by your own account would commit the same action.

---------- Post added September-22nd-2011 at 10:14 AM ----------

I think people do not understand what a recant is here.

All it is, is saying I can't confirm, not that it wasn't.

Not that it was someone else.

6 of the witnesses also said that police pressured, threatened, or coerced them into identifying Davis, which I think is a pretty important point.

" Six said the police threatened them if they did not identify Mr. Davis. The man who first told the police that Mr. Davis was the shooter later confessed to the crime. There are other reasons to doubt Mr. Davis’s guilt: There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime introduced at trial, and new ballistics evidence broke the link between him and a previous shooting that provided the motive for his conviction."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/opinion/a-grievous-wrong-on-georgias-death-row.html?_r=1

[Corcaigh]

Davis was undoubtedly at the murder scene with a friend. The day after the murder, whereas Davis’ friend voluntarily walked into a police station and cooperated with police, Davis skipped town. Now, I don’t know if Davis was guilty, but that looks bad.

Agreed.

I'm not a supporter of the death penalty. But it looks that Davis participated in a beating and then murder of someone who came to help, and then refused to cooperate with authorities. Coles may well be the trigger man. But I have little sympathy for Davis.

[Kosher Ham]

I think people do not understand that handing out the death penalty based purely on eye witness testimony, especially one that "can't be confirmed" (in your words) is absolutely ridiculous, and in actuality a massive blow to the pro death penalty stance. Not many are arguing for his innocence. But even pro death penalty advocates like Bob Barr (and myself) have an issue with it when it is delivered based on very underwhelming evidence.

Not the other witnesses.

You are proving his point, in your case death penalty or not you by your own account would commit the same action.

---------- Post added September-22nd-2011 at 10:14 AM ----------

6 of the witnesses also said that police pressured, threatened, or coerced them into identifying Davis, which I think is a pretty important point.

" Six said the police threatened them if they did not identify Mr. Davis. The man who first told the police that Mr. Davis was the shooter later confessed to the crime. There are other reasons to doubt Mr. Davis’s guilt: There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime introduced at trial, and new ballistics evidence broke the link between him and a previous shooting that provided the motive for his conviction."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/opinion/a-grievous-wrong-on-georgias-death-row.html?_r=1

I would be willing to die. So be it.

And 2 confirmed.