[Ppnews] Martina Correia on Troy Davis - Standing Up for My Brother on Death Row
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Fri May 13 10:52:16 EDT 2011
VIDEO AND MORE INFO AT
SITE:
<http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/beyond-prisons/the-locked-gate-standing-up-for-my-brother-on-death-row>http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/beyond-prisons/the-locked-gate-standing-up-for-my-brother-on-death-row
The Locked Gate: Standing Up for My Brother on Death Row
My brother and I dont always agree, but I defend
his innocence, and Ill never walk out on him again.
by Martina Davis-Correia, as told to Jen Marlowe
posted May 10, 2011
Twenty years ago, Troy Davis was convicted of
murdering a police officer and sentenced to
death. Davis maintains his innocence, and his
family, including sister Martina Davis-Correia,
have appealed the case with help from Amnesty
International. Davis final appeal was denied by
the U.S. Supreme Court, paving the way for
the state of Georgia to set an execution date.
Information about the case, and to sign a
petition to help save Troy: <http://justicefortroy.org>justicefortroy.org
Mama, my younger sister Kim, and I were visiting
my brother, Troy, like we did most weekends.
Inside the prison in Jackson, Ga., death-row
inmates and family members sat in a narrow
corridor, a locked door with yellow bars and a
guard separating us from the non-death-row inmates and their visitors.
After Troy and I went over the latest
developments in his case, we started talking
about religion. Troy has always prided himself on
knowing as much as he could about all religions.
Hes studied the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, and
the Book of Mormon. Troy has friends from all
different religions and ethnic groups, and he
wants to understand all their faiths.
We got into a heated debate about Bible verses.
But when Troy began reciting the Bible to me,
throwing in some passages from the Torah and
Quran for good measure, I got mad. I dont have to listen to this!
I got up, left the prison, and went and sat in
the car, pouting, waiting on Mama and Kim.
The argument wasnt really about a Bible verse.
Most likely I wasnt even right about the verse,
and I knew it. My daily frustration about Troys
case and the legal system just came to a boiling
point that day. I couldnt get Troys lawyers to
do what they were supposed to do. They knew Troy
was innocent, but they didnt have the resources to properly defend him.
Troys sense of impotency ran far deeper. He had
no control over his own life or over Georgias
justice system, which is trying to kill him.
Every weekend, I sat in there with Troy, while he
dissected police statements and pointed out
enormous contradictions and inconsistencies in
witness testimony. He had nothing to do all week
long aside from examining his case file. And he
had nowhere else to pour out his frustrations,
except when he was with us. I was trying my best
to get him out of there, trying my best to get
someone to listen. And then, Saturday after
Saturday, I had to relive the case with him. My
irritation mounted each time Troy found and
parsed a new detail about his case
how could he
have been convicted on such flimsy evidence?
About an hour later, Mama came out to the car.
Every few minutes, Troy had gotten up and gone to
the gate looking for me, she said. He thought
maybe I had gone to the restroom and was coming back.
An hour after we got home, the phone rang. It was
Troy. He wanted to apologize to me.
Thats when I realized: I could get up and leave
when I felt like it, and Troy couldnt. He was
powerless to leave, powerless to go after me.
And, frustrated as I was with his case, Troys
sense of impotency ran far deeper. He had no
control over his own life or over Georgias
justice system, which is trying to kill him. And
then, on top of it all, his older sister walked
out on him, and he couldnt do anything other
than twist his neck as far as he could to look
out the locked yellow gate to see if she was coming back.
With everything else stacked against him, he
couldnt stand the thought that his big sister
was angry with him. No wonder Troy called me
right away to tell me he was sorry, even though I
had been the one who was wrong.
I hung up the phone and bawled.
I will never walk out on Troy again. Not unless he is free to come after me.
Martina Davis-Correia and Jen Marlowe wrote this
article for Beyond Prisons, the Summer 2011 issue
of YES! Magazine. Jen is a human rights activist,
author, and documentary filmmaker. She is
currently working on a book with Martina.
Freedom Archives
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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