How Could Troy Davis Have Been an Innocent Man?

Following his execution in Georgia we have this story on Hot Air.

In Georgia, crowd of more than 1,000 mourns at Troy Davis’ funeral

 

The details of the case are pretty straightforward as outlined here on Wikipedia. Why is there such a hubbub about this? May I suggest that ending the death penalty is high on the progressive list of initiatives which are championed by the exquisitely well funded Soros network. More here.

But I recently ran across a piece by Judson Phillips on Tea Party Nation – a members only website – which explains just how arduous is the process in applying capital punishment, establishing the guilt of the perpetrators of crimes well beyond the point where there could possibly be the last shred of any doubt. Phillips writes:

For those who are unfamiliar with the system, here is how the death penalty works.  When a defendant is charged with a capital crime, the prosecutor first must make the decision whether or not to seek the death penalty.  In most instances, murders are not capital crimes.  The prosecutor cannot seek the death penalty just because he wants to.  There must be aggravating or special circumstances to warrant a death penalty.

Once the prosecutor makes known his intention to seek the death penalty, the defendant gets two appointed lawyers.  Each of those lawyers must have prior experience trying murder cases and go through special training to handle death penalty cases.  In addition, the defense gets a mitigation specialist whose job is to go through the defendant’s life, find out that he had a bad childhood and then give that sob story to the jury if the defendant is convicted.

In addition, in capital cases, the defense gets basically a blank check for investigators and experts.   In most death penalty cases, the defense has more resources than the prosecutor does.

When the case goes to the jury, the jury must first convict of the crime after receiving evidence that proves the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  In most states the jury instructions tell the jury that reasonable doubt is the inability of the mind to rest easily on the certainty of guilt.  Reasonable doubt is not an imaginary doubt or a possibility.

After the defendant is found guilty, then there is a separate sentencing hearing where the jury must unanimously find there are aggravating circumstances.  In some states the jury’s sentencing verdict is only a recommendation that the judge may agree with or overrule.  In other states the jury has the last word on sentencing.

Once a defendant has been sentenced to death, he gets to appeal his case, often with new lawyers.  A defendant gets to appeal to the state’s intermediate appellate courts (often called the Court of Criminal Appeals) and then to the state Supreme Court and if those are unsuccessful, then they can ask the United States Supreme Court to review the case.

Once the direct appeals are exhausted, the defendant is now given new lawyers (2 of them) and gets to file what is called a post-conviction attack.  This is a hearing at the trial court where the defendant claims the reason he was convicted was not the eyewitnesses, the confession and the DNA tying him to the crime, it was his lawyers did not do a good job.  Once those claims are denied, he again gets to appeal this through the state system.

Once those appeals are exhausted, then the defendant files a Habeas Corpus petition in Federal Court.  Again, the defendant gets new lawyers, investigators and a team at taxpayer expense.  He gets a hearing, which can be appealed from the district court to the federal circuit court of appeals and ultimately to the Supreme Court.

Only then does an execution become a realistic possibility.  Up until the last minute, lawyers, usually court appointed and paid for by the taxpayers, are filing last minute appeals.

The process usually takes about twenty years.*

Troy Davis was on death row for twenty years.  He was given a trial by a jury of his peers and then had countless opportunities to relitigate his death penalty.

The justice system was not broken.

On second thought, may be it was.  For twenty years, he sat on death row while Mark McPhail’s family had to endure all of the appeals.

Perhaps the question we should be asking is why does it take twenty years and an untold amount of taxpayer money for justice to be delivered?

Source. 

I think the answer to that question is: It is because America in the 21st century is now a nation OF THE LAWYERS, BY THE LAWYERS AND FOR THE LAWYERS.

Related: *The process may take only 12 years. There were two other executions that weekend and the appeal times varied considerably. Hear about the details in this Derb Radio podcast by John Derbyshire.