We can’t this wrong

The state of Georgia has been in the news in a big way this week. We’ve been on the minds of a former FBI director, a former president, numerous heads of state across Europe, and even the current Pope. Unfortunately, the attention we’ve been getting is not the good kind.

All of these high profile personalities, as well as hundreds of thousands of regular folks around the world, have been protesting the scheduled execution of Troy Smith, whose fate is still to be decided as I write this. He was convicted of killing a police officer in Savannah back in 1991 and has been on death row ever since. His case has been through numerous appeals but each time the legal system refused to overturn his conviction or give him a new trial.

I have to admit that the situation has me a bit baffled. Depending on who you listen to, the guy is either guilty well beyond a reasonable doubt or else the case against has completely fallen apart over time.

Davis conviction rested mainly on the testimony of nine witnesses to the shooting. No physical evidence of any kind presented at his trial. Since then, seven of those nine witnesses have recanted or significantly altered their stories, and two other individuals claim that someone else has confessed to the crime. Davis even offered to take a polygraph test to prove his innocence.

Yet the legal system has time and again denied his requests for a new trial and his oft-delayed conviction has remained on track. I am not a legal expert by any means, but the reason for that seems to be that once a person is convicted of a crime he has to do a lot more than introduce reasonable doubt to get that conviction reversed. He has to more or less prove his innocence, which is a much higher standard than what is required for an initial conviction.

And there’s a reason for that. If that was not the case, I’m sure you would have convicted criminals constantly besieging the legal system with “new evidence” that might cast some shred of doubt about their guilt. The system would get into a state of constant review and re-review of cases that have already been tried. Once a person gets their day in court, in other words, they don’t get to continue to retry the case over and over, hoping that something will eventually sway someone’s opinion and get them sprung.

However, I think when we are talking about death penalty cases the standards need to be different. Before we stick a needle in someone’s arm and take their life we need to be sure, at that moment, that we are not harboring any doubts about whether or not this person committed the crime they were convicted of.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t care much about what the Council of Europe or Pope Benedict XVI think about Georgia’s legal system. But based on what I know about this case I have doubts about whether or not Troy Davis was guilty of the crime that we executed him for. I would like to know why the Board of Pardons and Paroles does not seem to share those doubts, and I think I have the right to know that.

This is my state. I pay the taxes that fund the courts, the jails, and the execution chamber. I vote for the people who oversee the courtrooms and make our laws. This is not a case where I can say “I’m not responsible for happened.” I am responsible, and so are you. It is my government, acting on my behalf, which ends the life of men like Troy Davis.

There is no way to undo an execution once it’s done. So we better be damn confident we get it right, every time. And if we aren’t, we need to stop executing people until that confidence can be restored.