Stay was right call
The following editorial appeared Thursday in the Miami Herald.
The U.S. Supreme Court was right to call a halt – at least temporarily – to the execution of a Georgia inmate convicted of killing a police officer in 1989. It was a humane, sensible decision that could prevent a man who has spent 17 years under a death sentence from being wrongfully executed.
Surely that is worth the court’s time and attention, even though the Georgia Supreme Court and state Board of Pardons and Paroles, when faced with the same dilemma, decided on the expedience of execution.
The last-minute stay of execution, issued just hours before Troy A. Davis was to be put to death by lethal injection, buys time for the court to take a closer look at the case. This is the least that should be done when there are valid questions about whether the right person was convicted and when a human life hangs in the balance.
The decision to stop the execution is no indication of what the court thinks about Davis’ conviction. On Monday, however, the court will offer a clue on that point. If it says no to Davis’ request for a new trial, that will signal that the court believes that concerns about his possible innocence aren’t significant or relevant – and the execution will be carried out promptly.
However, just getting the court to consider the request should be seen as a victory for Davis. If the court says yes to his request for an appeal, Davis would get the chance – thus far denied him – to argue that his conviction was a miscarriage of justice.
This should be a concern for every American, but apparently it is not. Police, prosecutors, judges and parole boards sometimes get so caught up in preserving a victory or defending their decisions that they forget their primary goal is to seek justice. Anyone who doubts that the courts make mistakes should look at the work of the Innocence Project. Since the early 1990s when DNA became a viable tool for analyzing physical evidence and proving a person’s connection to a crime, at least 220 persons have been exonerated of crimes – including murder – that they didn’t commit.
No physical evidence linked Davis to the murder of Savannah officer Mark MacPhail, so DNA is of no use in his case. Davis was convicted on the basis of testimony from nine people, seven of whom have since recanted their statements. The other witnesses are a man believed to be the actual killer and a second man who initially couldn’t identify the killer, but changed his mind two years later at trial.
A state’s decision to take a human life is irreversible. So states must do everything possible to be right the first time or to correct errors when they are wrong. We hope the court’s intervention means that it wants to make sure an innocent man isn’t wrongfully executed.