Executions kill any chance to correct possible injustice

On Sept. 23, our great state of Georgia is poised to deliver a miscarriage of justice in the name of its citizenry. A man, on death row for the 1989 murder of an off-duty policeman in Savannah, is scheduled to die on that date.

A heinous crime was committed — one that defies understanding. The familial pain inflicted can only be imagined. The loss will never subside and their burden will never be diminished by any judicial ruling.

As a society, we kill to teach that killing is wrong. Can anyone say that Troy Anthony Davis, the accused, is the murderer in this tragedy beyond doubt? The burden of proof was circumstantial by all admission: no physical evidence of any description, no weapon, no fingerprints, no DNA. The conviction was made from the least reliable source: eyewitness accounts. Nine claimed to have seen Davis commit the crime. Seven recanted their testimony; two have not. One of those two is a suspect, and the other is a person who claimed to have seen no one do the shooting, but changed his testimony through interrogation. Troy Davis may not have proven his innocence at trial, but no one, with absolute certainty, has proven his guilt.

At a conference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in 2002, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia responded to a question on whether he thought the death penalty would inevitably lead to the condemnation of someone who is innocent. In the transcript, he replied: “Well, of course it will. I mean you cannot have any system of human justice that is going to be perfect. And if the death penalty is immoral for that reason, so is life in prison. You think you’re not going to have innocent people put in prison for life? It’s one of the risks of living in an organized human society.” Later he ventured to say that he felt the innocent rarely received the death penalty.

Unfortunately, time has proved him to be dead wrong. Larry Griffin in Missouri, Carlos DeLuna, Reuben Cantu and Cameron Todd Willingham — all from Texas — have one thing in common besides being executed. Each died with lingering questions as to his guilt, and evidence that gave a strong preponderance toward innocence. Who wins in the end, when the end does not justify the means?

Unlike Scalia’s assessment that imperfections in our justice system are to be taken for granted, I would hope that as Americans we can finally muster the courage to say enough is enough to a barbaric system with such obvious flaws. As a nation we have the means to assure the safety of the public trust without the need for retaliation and vengeance under the guise of retributive justice. Our judicial and legislative systems can favor morality in judgment when fair-minded people recognize there is no margin for error regarding the permanence of the death penalty as opposed to a sentence of life in prison without parole.

I have never met Troy Davis and have nothing to gain from requesting clemency in his name. Yet I have everything to gain because I am pro-life, and I fail my conscience and my faith when I continue to maintain silence. I fail my children and grandchildren in their promise for a better world. I fail to respect life in all its sacredness by succumbing to a “culture of death,” as Pope John Paul II succinctly put it. Pope Benedict XVI, his successor, requested that Troy Davis be re-sentenced to life in prison without parole. I hope others will join him. There should be — and I hope there will be — an outcry on the death penalty from all those who profess to be pro-life. This is not a made-for-TV prime-time spectacle. It is real life. Some might say that as a Catholic I am imposing my belief system on others. On the contrary. As an ordinary citizen, I am simply telling my state of Georgia: Do not kill in my name.

Mary Jean Goode, a retired nurse, lives in Dunwoody.