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Troy Davis execution: Georgia pardons board denies plea for clemency

Redress said:
You mean except for the 500 or so people demonstrating outside the prison? And those posting about it on message boards. And those talking about it among friends?

As best I can tell, the problem came down to the law. The law lays out the procedures, and they where followed. Once convicted, the standard of proof is changed, and there are rules for what can get him new trials, and what can get his case overturned, and so on.
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And yet everybody sees some moral issue with the execution, but nobody representing the law, not the governor, nobody wanted to make sure he wasn't innocent. All these people people saw this as controversial. I really don't see it's a simple matter of the law being upheld, as if, nobody representing the law could have done more or could have made this execution of as little controversy as possible. When the guys get executed for the home invasion that killed a woman and her two children, there won't be a scene like this.
 
danarhea said:
Willingham? Yea, he is the one Perry signed the execution order for, then when the Forensics Board was about to release a report that he was innocent, Perry fired them and replaced them with political cronies, who killed the investigation.
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What has been done about it since? Has his name been cleared publicly?
 
danarhea said:
Willingham? Yea, he is the one Perry signed the execution order for, then when the Forensics Board was about to release a report that he was innocent, Perry fired them and replaced them with political cronies, who killed the investigation.
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Why would Perry want to convict him so badly anyway? Is the political risk of admitting the death penalty can get it wrong, and the wrong guy can be put on death row?
 
SheWolf said:
And yet everybody sees some moral issue with the execution, but nobody representing the law, not the governor, nobody wanted to make sure he wasn't innocent. All these people people saw this as controversial. I really don't see it's a simple matter of the law being upheld, as if, nobody representing the law could have done more or could have made this execution of as little controversy as possible. When the guys get executed for the home invasion that killed a woman and her two children, there won't be a scene like this.
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[Bolding mine] And there wasn't about Texas executing Brewer tonight (he's one of the guys that drug that poor man to death behind a pickup in the 90's). Nor should there have been, as there was no question about his guilt.
 
danarhea said:
Doing great. Playing for the Edison Freeman Project now. :)

You still a mod over there?
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Nah. The forum died a while back. So many technical difficulties and the owner didn't care and let it go. So it doesn't even exist anymore.
 
poweRob said:
Nah. The forum died a while back. So many technical difficulties and the owner didn't care and let it go. So it doesn't even exist anymore.
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Sorry to hear that. At least you are here. This is a good forum. You will like it. Trolls are effectively dealt with here. And, once you reach 250 posts, a hidden subforum will open up for you. Can't tell you what it is. Just say that it is a world like no other. LOL.
 
danarhea said:
Sorry to hear that. At least you are here. This is a good forum. You will like it. Trolls are effectively dealt with here. And, once you reach 250 posts, a hidden subforum will open up for you. Can't tell you what it is. Just say that it is a world like no other. LOL.
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Man I hope the walls there aren't sticky.
 
Chenoa said:
[Bolding mine] And there wasn't about Texas executing Brewer tonight (he's one of the guys that drug that poor man to death behind a pickup in the 90's). Nor should there have been, as there was no question about his guilt.
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Of course. When guilt is obvious, it's not as controversial. Some people are always going to be against the death penalty and protest every execution, but this wasn't one of those executions. The law shouldn't support a government that kills innocent people... The law isn't working properly, and this could have likely cost an innocent man his life. And if an innocent man died, every single person serving the state of Georgia ****ed up big time. Executing somebody should NEVER prompt this type of public response. There should be no doubt. I am afraid that executions are more about politics than about justice. The people working for the government seem to be more afraid to look soft of executing somebody than they are afraid of killing an innocent person.
 
it's not appropriate for the President of the United States to intervene in the Davis case who happens to be one of his own citizens but it apparently is appropriate to be selectively spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East when it suits.

awesome.


Meanwhile, a spokesman for US President Barack Obama said he will not intervene in the Davis case, because it was "not appropriate" to become involved in specific state cases.

"Dating back to his time in the Illinois State Senate, President Obama has worked to ensure accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system, especially in capital punishment cases," Press Secretary Jay Carney said ahead of the planned execution.

"However, it is not appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution."

Troy Davis executed as final plea fails | The Australian
 
Chenoa said:
[Bolding mine] And there wasn't about Texas executing Brewer tonight (he's one of the guys that drug that poor man to death behind a pickup in the 90's). Nor should there have been, as there was no question about his guilt.
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Yeah, I noticed none of the death penalty opponents in this thread (except PoweRob) had anything to say in that thread. Why is that?
 
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I'll posted what I posted on facebook:

Closing statements for the night before I go to bed...I'm am genuinely bothered and angry that my country - one that claims to stand for civil rights, for freedom, and for justice and equality - has on this night perpetrated a gross and senseless injustice.

This is seriously going to keep me awake tonight, because I am that pissed off and disappointed at our justice system.
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X Factor said:
Yeah, I noticed none of the death penalty opponents in this thread (except PoweRob) had anything to say in that thread. Why is that?
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Well, I'm not really a "death penalty opponent" (although I may be on my way to becoming because my views have changed somewhat recently), but the problem most people have with the death penalty isn't that it kills guilty people, it's that it kills innocent people as well...
 
StillBallin75 said:
Well, I'm not really a "death penalty opponent" (although I may be on my way to becoming because my views have changed somewhat recently), but the problem most people have with the death penalty isn't that it kills guilty people, it's that it kills innocent people as well...
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There are plenty here who don't feel the guilty should be executed either (that it's just uncivlized and such). The outrage should be just the same in the two cases. If you're on your way to opposing the death penalty, you'll need to oppose it in the majority of cases where the person is actually guilty.
 
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X Factor said:
Yeah, I noticed none of the death penalty opponents in this thread (except PoweRob) had anything to say in that thread. Why is that?
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I have no idea. I'm not for the death penalty any more. I was for my entire life, but the last few years I gradually changed my mind. Oddly, I really wasn't bothered a bit with Brewer being executed tonight. I think it has more to do with how heinous his crime was, who he killed and why he killed him, the odds (3 against 1), the senselessness of the crime, and that there was absolutely no doubt he did it.

I wasn't over there for two reasons: 1) I was on this thread and watching CNN; and 2) the reasons I stated above, but I'm not proud of it. More perplexed.
 
X Factor said:
There are plenty here who don't feel the guilty should be executed either (that it's just uncivlized and such). The outrage should be just the same in the two cases. If you're on your way to opposing the death penalty, you'll need to oppose it in the majority of cases where the person is actually guilty.
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I don't think so. IMHO, whether or not you're for or against the death penalty in principle, the idea of killing of a guilty man is always on its face a less outrageous development than the killing of an innocent, no matter who you are.
 
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Chenoa said:
I have no idea. I'm not for the death penalty any more. I was for my entire life, but the last few years I gradually changed my mind. Oddly, I really wasn't bothered a bit with Brewer being executed tonight. I think it has more to do with how heinous his crime was, who he killed and why he killed him, the odds (3 against 1), the senselessness of the crime, and that there was absolutely no doubt he did it.

I wasn't over there for two reasons: 1) I was on this thread and watching CNN; and 2) the reasons I stated above, but I'm not proud of it. More perplexed.
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The fact that Brewer was a mean, nasty, and guilty son of a bitch is not, at all, uncommon for people on death row.

StillBallin75 said:
I don't think so. IMHO, whether or not you're for or against the death penalty in principle, the idea of killing of a guilty man is always on its face a less outrageous development than the killing of an innocent, no matter who you are.
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If the objection is that the government shouldn't be carrying out executions, then the guilt/innocence shouldn't matter. This is why I could never become anti death penalty. Guilt and the actions of the killer do matter to me.

Redress said:
Being morally opposed to the death penalty does not mean nor require that you have sympathy for the criminal nor lack sympathy for the victim, any more than being morally opposed to torture means you have sympathy for terrorists. Your post is based on a false premise.
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I don't know Redress. When I hear the facts of certain types of cases, I just cannot imagine sympathy for the victim translating easily to some lesser punishment. Also, if your wish is to spare the killer, there'd need to be some sympathy for the killer (though I'm not saying, at all, it necessarily outweighs sympathy for the victim).
 
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SheWolf said:
Of course. When guilt is obvious, it's not as controversial. Some people are always going to be against the death penalty and protest every execution, but this wasn't one of those executions. The law shouldn't support a government that kills innocent people... The law isn't working properly, and this could have likely cost an innocent man his life. And if an innocent man died, every single person serving the state of Georgia ****ed up big time. Executing somebody should NEVER prompt this type of public response. There should be no doubt. I am afraid that executions are more about politics than about justice. The people working for the government seem to be more afraid to look soft of executing somebody than they are afraid of killing an innocent person.
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FAR too often these cases involve LE and prosecutors who ride the convictions to advancement in their careers.

THATS why they defend them so stridently.

I hope everyone who supports this the way it went down enjoys the same justice as Troy Davis.

And his family and friends.

How in the **** did they get a death penalty conviction with NO physical evidence in the first place?

It would be nice if our legal system had prosecutors who sought justice instead of convictions. But that's not the case. Their actual JOB is to convict people, to prosecute. Its not in their job description to make sure only the guilty go to prison. Notches in the belt.

Id love to know where the prosecution in this case is today. LE involved too. Just their current jobs and some indication how much this case propelled their careers.

So maybe THEIR kids are better off, so some good came of this.

And don't bother trying to brand me as soft.

I think the surely guilty of heinous crimes should sit alone in a cell with nothing but a picture of their victims to look at. Until they die in gibbering madness.

The death penalty is far too clean a death for some.

But if you're on death row and there is DNA evidence available that could prove innocence, anyone who opposes running what is now a simple test is an ASSHOLE of the highest order. Frees the innocent and shuts the guilty the **** up.

But we don't do this, because it could damage the responsible prosecutions political career. "Vote for Bob! He didn't send an innocent man to his death".
 
X Factor said:
I don't know Redress. When I hear the facts of certain types of cases, I just cannot imagine sympathy for the victim translating easily to some lesser punishment. Also, if your wish is to spare the killer, there'd need to be some sympathy for the killer (though I'm not saying, at all, it necessarily outweighs sympathy for the victim).
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I am not sure how what you said here addresses what I said, so I will try and make my point better. If you oppose the death penalty, the most likely reasons are you consider it immoral to kill under those circumstances(ie a defenseless person), or you are concerned about the finality of the death penalty(ie if more evidence comes out, it's too late, and mistakes can and do happen), or some combination of both. Those are not the only possible reasons, but I think that encompasses the reasons most oppose the death penalty.

In the case of the first, the victim is irrelevant to the reason for opposing the death penalty. The concept is that the government simply should not be killing people outside of war, that it is morally wrong. If it is morally wrong, then justice, which should be the goal of a judicial system, is not served by killing some one. While you can feel for the victim of the crime, you cannot undo the crime by killing any one. As far as the criminal, it has nothing to do with sympathy for them. If for example it is wrong to steal, then it is still wrong to steal from a mean, nasty person. If it is wrong for the government to sanction killing in the name of justice, then this is true whether the person is nice or nasty. Morality does not depend on who you are acting towards, but on how you act.

In the second case, the goal is to not dispense injustice. The person holds to the concept that it is to not execute a guilty person than to execute an innocent man. Again, there is no sympathy for the guilty, only concern for the innocent. In both cases, it is easy to justify that society is protected equally well by life in prison as by execution, as is the victim.

I used the torture example in my earlier post, and I think that helps make it clear. If you feel that torture is morally or legally wrong, then this is true even if the person in question is totally vile. I do not care about his well being, I care about doing what is right, even when that is not easy. I feel no sympathy whatsoever for those we waterboarded. Hell, I hope it hurt like hell and made their life hell. I still do not think we should have done it as it is morally wrong to torture.
 
Sawwwwweeeeeeeet. More very compassionate individuals that really really really CARE. As of...what time was thread posted? Yesterday? :lamo
 
MrVicchio said:
1,000,000 new chances for rape and murder, all to protect your fragile fear of an "innocent" being put to death. And you think the DP is cruel... smh
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Can someone you love be the "innocent" next time? So we can put them in cute little quotes?

You either think that's fair, or you're a hypocrite.

I predict hypocrite.
 
X Factor said:
Yeah, I noticed none of the death penalty opponents in this thread (except PoweRob) had anything to say in that thread. Why is that?
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posters are very much like moderators in one way. we can't possibly see every single post and every single thread. isn't that why the moderators rely on the "report post function"? why don't you appoint yourself the imaginary/pretend Death Penalty function button and pm all those you know who are anti death penalty every time there is a thread about it.

i for one will be more than happy to participate in it if i'm still around.

just a thought of course.
 
SheWolf said:
Have you seen many protests?

It is very sad indeed. Killing a person won't make anything, especially not killing an innocent person. I think Georgia is making the death of an off duty officer a lot worse for the community. I am wondering what is wrong with the politicians in your state though. Why would they be against investigating his innocence? What hell? It's mind boggling and scary.
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Cover Your Ass.

Plain and simple.

The cops and prosecution in this case will see irreparable damage to their careers if it comes out that they almost killed an innocent man (which lets the ACTUAL perpetrator off scott free, in case you guys were conveniently forgetting that in your bloodlust).

So they circle the wagons and put their heads down and play code of silence, instead of owning up and facing JUSTICE. Which is why its DISGUSTING when it happens. Because JUSTICE is supposed to be their JOB, remember?

Sorry, this just pisses me off. Imagine lying strapped to a table with needles in your arm, KNOWING, you didn't do what you are about to be killed for. Makes me want to slap the **** out of everybody who pulled a "too bad, so sad. C-ya wouldn't want to be ya" attitude about this. But I don't have the time or energy to slap that many people, so this'll have to do.
 
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