by Brian Gilmore

Troy Davis is dead.  Executed in Georgia this past week.  He said over and over he is innocent and though my personal feeling is, he did not kill Officer Mark MacPhail more than two decades ago in Savannah, Georgia; that is not the real issue.

The real issue is the prosecution of Troy Davis, the sentencing, and then the failed appeals for a new trial, reveal again that what must die is the death penalty.  Who dies and who lives? It is like picking the name from a hat.  I could be on death row if I get mistaken for someone one night. Some who have been exonerated spent decades in jail due to false identification, or a corrupt system. That is all they had on Davis in the end: two eyewitnesses, one of which some said was the real killer who had threatened to kill the others if they told the truth.

The other seven eyewitnesses recanted. Four said they police threatened them to get them to finger Davis, according to various media accounts as the fervor over Davis’ impending annihilation loomed in the media.

By the same token, Samuel David Crowe is alive today. In 1988, he brutally murdered Joseph Paia in cold blood.  He was about to be executed in 2008 when the same Georgia Parole Board that sent Troy Davis to his end, saved Crowe.   The Paia family was absolutely crushed by the decision and could not even speak to the media when the decision as announced. Here is what Crowe did to Pala and what he confessed to without any doubt:

“Crowe robbed the lumber store after shooting Pala in the chest. Pala was shot at two more time by Crowe as he was trying to run for his life. Crowe then beat him with a paint can, and poured paint over his face. Thinking he may still be alive, he proceeded to beat him over the head with a crowbar. He fled the scene with $1,160.”

I am not arguing that Crowe should have put to death in 1988. I am here to argue that the state has no business murdering people on my dime or your dime. It suggests that all agree with these arbitrary decisions to kill people, even when there is serious doubt, about guilt. Should Tim McVeigh have been spared?  Yes. How about the DC Sniper who had me buying gas in the crime infested sections of Washington D.C. because I knew the hood was safe from the madness?  Yes.  I think the death penalty should die. I don't like the first murder or the follow-up killing by the state.

As for Davis, the questions will linger. Did Davis have to die because a cop was the victim? Was Davis the person who did it? No one really knows but Davis.    

Jessica Care Moore, the fabulous Detroit poet, said this past week she could not believe it when Davis was actually killed and is afraid for her 5 year old son even more now.  

Pro-death penalty forces might have rejoiced when Davis was killed this past week. But I believe that capitol punishment, as much as Americans love it, has seen better days and will one day be outlawed.  We are just too Old Testament right now. Eye for an eye.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  And it wasn't reformed in a day either.