[Ppnews] It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs05152009.html

May 15-17, 2009


Executions and the Advancing Police State


It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis

By RON JACOBS

One wonders how many times this scenario has played out in the United 
States.  Like a classic crime movie, the details go something like 
this:  A group of young men, usually African-American, get involved 
in an activity of questionable legality.  A police officer (often 
off-duty) intervenes.   Weapons are drawn by the officer and someone 
else.  The officer ends up dead.  One of the young men is accused of 
the crime even though the evidence (if there is any) offers no clear 
link between the accused and the crime.  Prosecutors rely on 
witnesses with minimal credibility to get a conviction.  The accused 
young man is then sentenced to death.  While he sits on death row, 
questions about the prosecution and conviction begin to appear in the 
press.  The prosecution conspires with the judicial system to keep 
their conviction intact, refusing any motions for retrial based on 
new evidence.  The convicted man grows old in prison, facing multiple 
execution dates that are only stayed by appeals that never lead to a new trial.

This is the case of Troy Davis in one paragraph.  The bulk of the 
prosecutor's evidence presented at Davis 1991 trial in the murder of 
an off-duty policeman in Georgia was based primarily on that of 
prosecution witnesses who later recanted their testimony.  In 
addition, most of them have claimed repeatedly that they were 
pressured by police to point to Davis as the perpetrator.  No murder 
weapon was ever found and no physical evidence linked him to the 
crime.  One of the two main witnesses who has not recanted was the 
original suspect in the crime.

Despite a bulk of new evidence, the state of Georgia has refused to 
grant a new trial.   As recently as April 16th, 2009, Davis' appeal 
for a new trial was rejected by a federal appeals court in a 2-1 
decision.  The dissenting judge was unsparing in her criticism of the 
Georgia's legal case and his death sentence.  She wrote: "To execute 
Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that 
may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and 
unconstitutional."  Yet, the execution of Troy Davis looms in the distance.

Like almost every other case of this nature, the fundamental action 
that has kept Davis alive is a popular movement that spans the 
globe.  From the streets of Atlanta to the chambers of the European 
Parliament, thousands have called for Davis's death sentence to be 
commuted, with many demanding a new trial based on the new 
evidence.  I recently communicated with Marlene Martin, an organizer 
for the National Campaign to End the Death Penalty--one of the 
organizations spearheading the campaign around Troy.  When I asked 
her about the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis on May 19th, she 
wrote me this:

The coming global day of Action for Troy Davis on May 19th--which 
also happens to be Malcolm X's birthday--is really important. Troy 
Davis is alive today in spite of our legal system, not because of 
it.  The fact that he hasn't ever been allowed to present new and 
compelling evidence of his innocence to a jury--and could be executed 
without ever having the opportunity to do so--is mind-boggling.

The state of Georgia has already tried three times to kill Troy. They 
would rather kill him than admit wrongdoing.  But they have been 
stopped in their tracks each and every time by the movement outside 
the courthouse, spearheaded by Troy's sister Martina Correia.  As a 
result of her efforts, and Amnesty International and many other 
organizations coming together to fight for Troy, people around the 
country and around the world know about his case. I get e-mails from 
all over -- England, Germany, France, New Zealand Canada--all people 
that support Troy.

One thing that's clear in this fight is we can't rely on the 
courts.  We need to build for the day of action to be as big as it 
can be, and to keep organizing.  Troy represents many, many others 
who are in prison today--too poor to afford good representation at 
trial, and a person of color.

Also at issue in this case is the entire question of the death 
penalty.  The United States is one of the few nations in the 
so-called free world that continues to practice this barbaric form of 
justice.  In addition, it also ranks near the top among nations that 
do execute some of their criminals.  Add to that the well-documented 
racial disparity in these executions, especially when looking at the 
numbers of whites executed for killing blacks versus the number of 
blacks executed for killing whites and those executions seem even 
more barbaric.  When one considers this, it becomes essential to 
challenge not only the execution of Troy Davis, but the political 
system that supports the practice of state-sanctioned murder.  This 
challenge becomes even more necessary when that system also tortures 
those it has arrested in its "war on terror" and imprisons them 
indefinitely without trial.  A land with such a system is closer to a 
police state than the land of the free. Unless those who live within 
its borders resist these authoritarian policies, there may come a 
time when such resistance will find them subject to them.

Not only is the movement to commute Troy Davis' execution and get him 
a new trial an effort to save a man's life, it is also part of an 
effort to prevent an increasingly authoritarian nation from becoming 
even more so.  Please consider joining the 
<http://nodeathpenalty.org/content/index.php>Global Day of Action for 
Troy Davis on May 19, 2009.

Ron Jacobs is author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859841678/counterpunchmaga>The 
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is 
just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is 
featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, 
<http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html>Serpents 
in the Garden. His first novel, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0977459098/counterpunchmaga>Short 
Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: 
<mailto:rjacobs3625 at charter.net>rjacobs3625 at charter.net




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