Listen up. Today The Daddy is feeling all those who participated in the May 19th Global Day of Action for Troy Davis. Thank you standing up for Troy Davis, for American justice, for a country that does not kill human beings in your name. Thanks Sojourners Place, Electronic Village, African American Political Pundit, Eddie Griffith, Intersection of Madness and Reality, Zebra Sounds, On the Black Hand Side, Black on Campus, Ancestral Energies, A Slant Truth, Afro Spear Think Tank, Blues Historian, and countless others who blogged for Troy as well. And thanks to Somebodies Friend, MP, and others who, after reading my blog, wrote letters to Gov. Perdue or emailed Troy to let him know they are still with him.Your protest was part of a world-wide struggle. People protested in 48 states and on 5 continents for clemency for Troy Davis. It was great, but obviously the fight is not over.
On May 19th, Troy's lawyers filed what they characterized as a "last-ditch" appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Lawyers for Davis say that executing Davis without a "full and fair hearing in which he could make a truly persuasive demonstration that he is actually innocent."
One of Davis lawyers says that they've been "astonished by how focused the courts are on finality and not on getting it right."
The Daddy says good luck with the appeal and thanks to those who will continue the fight.
.gif)
11 comments:
In this so-called democracy, our vigilance and action is required to sustain our freedoms.
Freedom ain't free.
Hi, Dudleysharp:
Thanks for dropping by. And you can use this blog to prevent the other side. But I find it interesting that you didn't do the following:
1. State your position on the death penalty. Could it be that you're for it? Could it be that, regardless of innocence or guilty, you're for the state sanctioning and empowering the killing of another human being?
2. I notice that you talk about evidence but never the collection of it. Don't you think that once people have been intimidated to sign a form that says one person shot another, that evidence should be viewed by law as tainted? By that legal logic, don't you think that everyone of those witness statements should be taken out of the proceedings? And since there is no weapon that connects Troy to the crime, since there is no physical evidence that connects him to the crime, don't you think the entire case should be allowed to go home after seventeen years of twisted justice? Or, at the very least, don't you think there should be a new hearing where the witnesses who recanted and the collection of the evidence discussed?
But I want you to know that I agree that a more comprehensive story should be told, such as the suffering of the family whose son was killed. Here's what I'm thinking:
1. Having to deal with this trial over and over again, how does that make them feel?
2. Yes, they want the killer brought to justice, but do they want the wrong man to die? If not, wouldn't they want the state to take care to investigate thoroughly to make sure the real killer is punished (I'm thinking here of one of the witnesses whom some of the witnesses have said did the killing)?
3. And what do they think of closure in this case? If Troy is executed, will they have closure? And are we talking about closure or revenge?
I think hearing their thoughts on those questions might help us to get at the entire question of the death penalty and what it means. Since research shows it doesn't deter crime, we must look at other reasons why we as a society continue to use it.
Thanks, Dudley. Wishing you a relaxing Memorial weekend. Blessings.
MacDaddy:
There is no reason for you to be both silly and absurd, at the same time.
I know of no one that supports or opposes the death penalty who doesn't care, very much about guilt and innocence.
Secondly, you should have read my material, before replying. The findings are quite clear, that the evidence is that all of the witnesses against Davis were not intimidated, at all. They were, all, cross examined, vicgorously by the defense, at trial, on that exact issue.
Thirdly, there is physical evidence that ties Davis to the crime.
Fourth, did you not know that there was a forum for all of the witnesse and Davis to present everything they wished, even if it was, procedurally barred?
Read the material.
All of it.
SCOTUS or other courst, may decide that more dearings are needed.
Fine by me.
I just want folks to realize that they really are not getting both sides.
Read the material.
All of it.
CLOSURE and EXECUTION
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
For those who have lost loved ones to murder, the execution of the murderer definitely brings closure.
The execution is closure to the legal process, whereby execution is the most just sanction available for the crime and the family is relieved that the murderer is dead and can no longer harm another innocent - a very big deal.
The confusion with "closure" is when some imply that execution can bring psychological or emotional closure to the devastation suffered by the murder victim's loved ones.
I know of no victim survivor who believes that execution could bring that type of closure. How could it? No punishment can, nor is that the intention.
The concept of emotional "closure" via execution is, often, a fantasy perpetrated by anti death penalty folks, just so they can denounce it, with a talking point, as in: "Those supporting capital punishment claim that closure is a major reason to support the death penalty - but there is no closure."
Do you know of any murder victim survivor who says that their emotional or psychological pain was closed once the murderer was executed? Me neither.
Murder victim "Mary Bounds' daughter, Jena Watson, who watched the execution, said Berry's action deprived the family of a mother, a grandmother and a friend, and that pain will never go away."
"We feel that we have received justice," she said Wednesday after the execution. "There's never an end to the hurt from a violent crime. There can never fully be closure. You have to learn to do the best you can. Tonight brings finality to a lot of emotional issues."
Ina Prechtl, who lost her daughter Felecia Prechtl. to a rape /murder said, after watching Karl Chamberlain executed: "One question I ask myself every day, why does it take so long for justice to be served?" It took 17 years for the execution. ("Texas executes 1st inmate since injection lull", 6/11/2008, MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer, HUNTSVILLE, Texas)
copyright 2009 Dudley Sharp, Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
http://www.dpinfo.com
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
http://www.coastda.com/archives.html http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm http://www.prodeathpenalty.com http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
The Death Penalty: Neither Hatred nor Revenge
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Death penalty opponents say that the death penalty has a foundation in hatred and revenge. Such is a false claim.
A death sentence requires pre existing statutes, trial and appeals, considerations of guilt and due process, to name but a few. Revenge requires none of these and, in fact, does not even require guilt or a crime.
The criminal justice system goes out of its way to take hatred and revenge out of the process. That is why we have a system of pre existing laws and legal procedures that offer extreme protections to defendants and those convicted and which provide statutes and sanctions which existed prior to the crime.
It is also why those directly affected by the murder are not allowed to be fact finders in the case.
The reality is that the pre trial, trial. appellate and executive clemency/commutation processes offer much greater time and human resources to capital cases than they do to any other cases, meaning that the facts tell us that defendants and convicted murderers, subject to the death penalty, receive much greater care and concern than those not facing the death penalty - the opposite of a system marked with vengeance.
Calling executions a product of hatred and revenge is simply a way in which "some" death penalty opponents attempt to establish a sense of moral superiority. It can also be a transparent insult which results in additional hurt to those victim survivors who have already suffered so much and who believe that execution is the appropriate punishment for those who murdered their loved one(s).
Far from moral superiority, those who call capital punishment an expression of hatred and revenge are often exhibiting their contempt for those who believe differently than they do. Instead, they might reflect on why others believe it is a just and deserved sanction for the crimes committed.
The pro death penalty position is based upon those who find that punishment just and appropriate under specific circumstances.
Those opposed to execution cannot prove a foundation of hatred and revenge for the death penalty any more than they can for any other punishment sought within a system such as that observed within the US - unless such opponents find all punishments a product of hatred and revenge - an unreasonable, unfounded position
Far from hatred and revenge, the death penalty represents our greatest condemnation for a crime of unequaled horror and consequence. Lesser punishments may suffice under some circumstances. A death sentence for certain heinous crimes is given in those special circumstances when a jury finds such is more just than a lesser sentence.
Less justice is not what we need.
A thorough review of the criminal justice system will often beg this question: Why have we chosen to be so generous to murderers and so contemptuous of the human rights and suffering of the victims and future victims?
The punishment of death is, in no way, a balancing between harm and punishment, because the innocent murder victim did not deserve or earn their fate, whereas the murderer has earned their own, deserved punishment by the free will action of violating societies laws and an individual's life and, thereby, voluntarily subjecting themselves to that jurisdiction's judgment.
copyright 2001-2009 Dudley Sharp, Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp
Of course the death penalty deters.
The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
Enhanced Due Process
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
Enhanced Incapacitation
To state the blatantly clear, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
Enhanced Deterrence
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
Innocents released from death row: Some reality
Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have all been released upon post conviction review. The anti death penalty claims, that the numbers are significantly higher, are a fraud, easily discoverable by fact checking.
The innocents deception of death penalty opponents has been getting exposure for many years. Even the behemoth of anti death penalty newspapers, The New York Times, has recognized that deception.
"To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . "(1) This when death penalty opponents were claiming the release of 119 "innocents" from death row. Death penalty opponents never required actual innocence in order for cases to be added to their "exonerated" or "innocents" list. They simply invented their own definitions for exonerated and innocent and deceptively shoe horned large numbers of inmates into those definitions - something easily discovered with fact checking.
There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
If we accept that the best predictor of future performance is past performance, we can, reasonably, conclude that the DNA cases will be excluded prior to trial, and that for the next 8000 death sentences, that we will experience a 99.8% accuracy rate in actual guilt convictions. This improved accuracy rate does not include the many additional safeguards that have been added to the system, over and above DNA testing.
Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
Unlikely.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
--------------------------------
Full report -All Innocence Issues: The Death Penalty, upon request.
Full report - The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
copyright 2007-2009, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp,
"There is no reason for you to be both silly and absurd, at the same time."
dudleysharpe: First, don't come on this blog suggesting that someone is silly and absurd. It makes you sound pompous and arrogant.
Second, I don't believe I suggested that people will get closure. But some do believe they can achieve closure with the death of another human being.
Third,I noticed you never spoke to the idea of evidence being tainted once obtained through coercion, intimidation or force. I know: Like the previous judges in Troy Davis case, you don't want to touch that. You don't want to admit that your fine racist law officers do that to black people. I understand. I come from those neck of the woods. I understand.
Listen, you can present yourself as an expert all you want. But you can't hide the rotten stench behind this case. And now the world can see it too. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Once again, have a great Memorial Day weekend.
MacDaddy:
You asked: "
"Could it be that, regardless of innocence or guilty, you're for the state sanctioning and empowering the killing of another human being?"
If not a silly and absurd question, then what was it, grostesque?
And you have the nerve to suggest I soud pompous or arrogant?
My goodness, man, look at your horrid question and its implications.
Why would you even suggest such a thing?
I spoke directy toward coersion, or intimidation, in my first post, where it is covered within the links I supplied, and, also, in my original reply to you.
Yet, you still say I haven't discussed it.
Read the material I sent and read my replies before answering. Please.
All of your alleged stench issues are covered within the links that I sent.
Just read them, thoroughly.
Then reply.Please.
Dudley: There's no physical evidence that ties Davis to this crime. And how do you know they were intimidated? They said they were. You weren't there. I've lived in Alabama and Georgia. Police intimidate black men all the time. I believe them, not you.
I've read the material. I've also read material that contradict it. You are more prepared to believe tainted evidence that I am. Once evidence is tainted or obtained by improper means, I don't want to listen to any arguments that use it. Sorry. Have a good one.
MacDaddy, Thank you for your comments.
If you read all the material, you know that Davis' defense counsel , during the trial, questioned all of the eyewitnesses, very strongly, on the issue of whether they were coerced or intimidated.
All of the eyewitnesses said that there was no coercion or intimidation, of any kind.
At trial, their identifications were solid, without a hint of coercion or intimidation.
Police intimidate folks of all races, colors and ethnicity, often.
However, that intimidation does not carry over to the trial.
The eyewitnesses were interviewed, extensively, by the prosecutors prior to the trial and there was no mention of intimidation or coercion, there, either, just as there was a denial of intimidation or coercion by those same witnesses at trial.
I am no more willing to accept "alleged" tainted evidence than is anyone else, including you.
One of the things the appellate judges are looking at is that Davis' attorneys waited, for years, to bring up these "recantations".
First, that strongly indicates that Davis' attorneys didn't give them much credibility, themselves.That is the only reason for the delay.
Secondly, and obviously, we all have to consider that the intimidation and coercion of witnesses can, also, occur, long after a trial and that saving the life of a person on death row, either guilty or innocent, provides motivation to do so.
Most, if not all, of the appellate judges in this case, have been around a long time and certainly, they have seen both credible and non credible recantations and forgetfullness by witnesses from trials, that were many years in the past, as in the Davis case.
I think we all know that to be true.
We may be talking past one another on the physical evidence. Davis was identified as the one with the gun and the two shootings and the bullets recovered were tied to the two shootings, the bullets were tied to the same gun, and the two shootings were tied to Davis.The gun wasn't recovered.
Thank you for being so kind as to give me a forum for this exchange.
Post a Comment