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There Is No Travesty of Justice in Georgia. Execute Troy Davis

VanceMack said:
Lets call it a mutually beneficially 'using'...one where everyone wins.
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But you're saying they hitched their wagon to the wrong mule, and if that's true, he was the only one who had any chance of winning. He done lost, though.

He gets to enjoy a little bit of celebrity and goes down as a footnote in history....
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I'm sure he thought that was worth his life.

Im fine with people that are truly opposed to the death penalty and stand against it no matter what. I would naturally have expected to see more of them rallying around the KKK member executed on the same day, just for consistency sake.... I just think it is a wee bit hypocritical to slide in when something hits the newspapers, suddenly express concern and outrage, then move on the next headline. Its equally hypocritical to pretend they care about their guilt or innocence when all that they really care about is the death penalty.
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This is a totally valid argument about the inconsistency of many in the anti-death penalty crowd (minus the unborn portion, since that is an unrelated issue with many different points to be made).

But at the same time, I recall when John Wayne Gacy was executed here in Illinois. He was a man who's guilt was cut and died, yet there were still anti-death penalty protests at his execution. The problem, in my opinion, was that they were far smaller than other protests where the guilt of the condemned was not so obvious as Gacy's was. If the movement wants to be taken seriously, it should be consistent on how it protests executions, on that I firmly agree.

But I think that the inconsistency is actually due to a problem with the arguments presented by many who are opposed to the death penalty. They overfocus on the very real possibility of an innocent man being put to death hoping to sway proponents through emotionality. I think this is a flawed approach, myself, and it is also why there are far fewer who protest when guilt is obvious.
 
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Tucker Case said:
But you're saying they hitched their wagon to the wrong mule, and if that's true, he was the only one who had any chance of winning. He done lost, though.



I'm sure he thought that was worth his life.



This is a totally valid argument about the inconsistency of many in the anti-death penalty crowd (minus the unborn portion, since that is an unrelated issue with many different points to be made).

But at the same time, I recall when John Wayne Gacy was executed here in Illinois. He was a man who's guilt was cut and died, yet there were still anti-death penalty protests at his execution. The problem, in my opinion, was that they were far smaller than other protests where the guilt of the condemned was not so obvious as Gacy's was. If the movement wants to be taken seriously, it should be consistent on how it protests executions, on that I firmly agree.

But I think that the inconsistency is actually due to a problem with the arguments presented by many who are opposed to the death penalty. They overfocus on the very real possibility of an innocent man being put to death hoping to sway proponents through emotionality. I think this is a flawed approach, myself, and it is also why there are far fewer who protest when guilt is obvious.
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If people were to simply take a stand against the death penalty, that would be an honest and IMO much more powerful stand to take. When the threads started about Troy Davis, it wasnt about "End Death Sentence Now" it was about "Oh the injustice...an innocent man is about to be murdered by the state." One position is honest and even consistent. The other is pure hype and rhetoric...and dishonest to boot. For those people to pretend to 'care' about the guy is mere hypocricy. I said it then...the anti-death penalty folks that were there with the pictures of Troy Davis over their face were gone by 11 pm. Like I said...if you are going to run in the Kentucky Derby, you probably should ride in on a beatdown mule that couldnt get out of the gate. I think protests like this hurt their cause. You mentioned Gacy...THATS the kind of executions they should be protesting at and they shoulnt cloud their message with this pretense of 'injustice'.
 
VanceMack said:
If people were to simply take a stand against the death penalty, that would be an honest and IMO much more powerful stand to take. When the threads started about Troy Davis, it wasnt about "End Death Sentence Now" it was about "Oh the injustice...an innocent man is about to be murdered by the state." One position is honest and even consistent. The other is pure hype and rhetoric...and dishonest to boot. For those people to pretend to 'care' about the guy is mere hypocricy. I said it then...the anti-death penalty folks that were there with the pictures of Troy Davis over their face were gone by 11 pm. Like I said...if you are going to run in the Kentucky Derby, you probably should ride in on a beatdown mule that couldnt get out of the gate. I think protests like this hurt their cause. You mentioned Gacy...THATS the kind of executions they should be protesting at and they shoulnt cloud their message with this pretense of 'injustice'.
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You do know that like the oldest death penalty opponent, a black man, DID protest the death of that white supremacist guy, for EXACTLY the reasons you p
osit, right?

Personally my position is I reject the resistance to using technology to determine if people convicted before these techs were available were convicted in error.

This applies to ALL convictions in which DNA evidence exists that could be exculpatory.

Capital and otherwise.

I knew a guy who did 6 years for rejecting his girlfriends deeply troubled daughters advances. She accused him of rape, he was convicted.

She recanted years later during therapy, and pursued his release. He still spent 6 years in prison as a rapist, but at least he wasn't executed.

I'm not anti-death penalty in and of itself, I just feel standards of evidence should be extrememly high for its application, with a bias towards certainty when reasonable doubt comes into question, rather than fighting tooth and nail to uphold every conviction.

"We screwed you fair and square", just isn't an acceptable position for a prosecutor to take.

CYA isn't either, and I'm sure that's where most of the resistance to making sure comes from.
 
jamesrage said:
That's because to most of these scumbag sympathizers a persons innocence has little to no relevance to their opposition of the death penalty.To them its just a tool for them to use to try to guilt people into not supporting the death penalty.

Now there are some groups of people who actually do care if someone behind bars is innocent and they try to get DNA tests done and other things to help exonerate someone.
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How do you tell the difference between the scumbag sympathizers and the non-scumbag sympathizers? You're good james, but not that good.
 
liblady said:
the wiki cite absolutely doesn't prove he was guilty. seems to me there were many, many questions surrounding this case.
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There are questions surrounding every case where the suspect does not confess. However, the prosecution had 34 witnesses - all were black. There was physical evidence. He had a very extensive appeals process and lost every one of them.
 
What if...? said:
You do know that like the oldest death penalty opponent, a black man, DID protest the death of that white supremacist guy, for EXACTLY the reasons you p
osit, right?

Personally my position is I reject the resistance to using technology to determine if people convicted before these techs were available were convicted in error.

This applies to ALL convictions in which DNA evidence exists that could be exculpatory.

Capital and otherwise.

I knew a guy who did 6 years for rejecting his girlfriends deeply troubled daughters advances. She accused him of rape, he was convicted.

She recanted years later during therapy, and pursued his release. He still spent 6 years in prison as a rapist, but at least he wasn't executed.

I'm not anti-death penalty in and of itself, I just feel standards of evidence should be extrememly high for its application, with a bias towards certainty when reasonable doubt comes into question, rather than fighting tooth and nail to uphold every conviction.

"We screwed you fair and square", just isn't an acceptable position for a prosecutor to take.

CYA isn't either, and I'm sure that's where most of the resistance to making sure comes from.
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Not sure where there is disagreement here. SOME do remain true to the actual cause...MOST? Please...its 'care' by headline...drive by give a ****..."weeeeee...look at me...Im compassionate and stuff!"

And I agree...I think the laws should all be changed to MANDATE DNA testing wherever possible, and not just in cases where people have the death sentence. Now...I wonder...if DNA evidence proves guilt, should we also ALLOW it, even in cases where searches may have been done inapprpriately?

THIS case however...the only cause the defense his hanging their hat on is the handful of fruitflakes that kept changing their story.
 
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