One year ago, after decades of appeals, witness recantations and petitions for clemency, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis. I stood witness outside the prison in Jackson, praying, singing and crying among a crowd of hundreds, all of us certain that the exonerating evidence would compel the justice system to reconsider its fatal conviction or, at least, grant enough time to fairly reexamine the facts of his case.
In a collective outburst of grief and outrage, Davis' death became one of the most active events ever seen on Twitter and sparked unprecedented media coverage. Ordinary citizens protested as did political and religious leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former FBI chief William Sessions.
One year later, as our memory of Davis fades, Missouri is moving closer to executing Reggie Clemons despite a distinct lack of physical evidence and plenty of prosecutorial misconduct. These two men are the unfortunate symbols of a broken system. With more than seven million Americans currently in prison or on parole, it's worth trying to understand - and fix - the problem.
Our criminal justice system is the end of the road for a disproportionate number of Black Americans, particularly Black men. But the problem starts much earlier in another system: public education. From a young age, the lines between the public education and criminal justice systems are blurred for Black children, who are more likely to be suspended, expelled and even arrested for minor disciplinary infractions than their peers. In the last thirty years, suspension rates for white students rose from 3 percent to 5 percent while suspension rates for Black students rose from 6 percent to 15 percent.
Contrary to schools' intentions, these punishments encourage further delinquent behavior and put children on the street instead of behind a desk. Once a Black teenager makes the transition from education to justice system, it's almost impossible to change his path.
The systematic discrimination that derails Black youth in school continues when they enter our courts. Prosecutors wield much greater power and have significantly more resources than the defense. Low-income Black men often cannot afford to hire effective counsel, increasing their chances of being railroaded into a guilty plea or facing a biased and unfair trial.
This is hardly a surprise as our criminal justice system is motivated by conviction rates and is more concerned with locking people up than ensuring that those convicted are actually guilty. Overzealous prosecutors, empowered by a system they help run, need to make sure that someone - anyone - pays for a crime. There is no incentive to make sure they have the right man.
From time to time, however, someone does attempt to balance the scales of justice for those trapped in the system. On November 6, California voters will consider Proposition 34, a ballot initiative to repeal the death penalty. Replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole in California will not eliminate injustice and error inherent in the criminal justice system, but it will take away the most destructive - and certainly the most irreversible - tool in the system's arsenal. At least California will have the comfort of knowing that no innocent people are put to death in their state.
If Californians approve Proposition 34, 725 current inmates will be taken off death row. Considering the flaws and prejudices inherent to our criminal justice system, it is very likely this number includes another Troy Davis or Reggie Clemons. The new law would require those convicted of murder to work in prison and earn wages to be applied to victim restitution fines, allowing them to be productive within the criminal justice system.
Until we are confident that all defendants receive a fair trial, we cannot feel confident about the decision to take a person's life. The death penalty is final and irreversible, and our criminal justice system is fraught with errors and doubt. If we continue to let a broken system determine the lives and deaths of so many Americans, we can expect to spend many more days praying and mourning over their fates.
Rashad Robinson is executive director of ColorOfChange.org. With more than 800,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation's largest Black online civil rights organization.
Follow Rashad Robinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rashadrobinson
Arguments of innocence bogus. Can’t identify one innocent person executed in CA. Can’t identify one person on CA’s death row who has exhausted his appeals and has a plausible claim of innocence. See http://cadeathpenalty.webs.com/
The arguments in support of Pro. 34, the ballot measure to abolish the death penalty, are exaggerated at best and, in most cases, misleading and false.
No “savings.” Alleged savings ignore increased life-time medical costs for aging inmates and require decreased security levels and housing 2-3 inmates per cell rather than one. Rather than spending 23 hours/day in their cell, inmates will be required to work. These changes will lead to increased violence for other inmates and guards and prove unworkable for these killers. Also, without the death penalty, the lack of incentive to plead the case to avoid the death penalty will lead to more trial and related costs and appeals.
No “accountability.” Max earnings for any inmate would amount to $383/year (assuming 100% of earnings went to victims), divided by number of qualifying victims. Hardly accounts for murdering a loved one.
No “full enforcement” as 729 inmates do not receive penalty given them by jurors. Also, for the 34,000 inmates serving life sentences, there will be NO increased penalty for killing a guard or another inmate. They’re already serving a life sentence.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is the biggest line of horse sh*t you'll hear from the justice system until you get caught up in it. You're guilty until you can pay your way out, unless you have so much money that nobody will even levy charges against you.
Our justice system is a joke, it expects criminals to play 'baseball' with their own lives and bat a perfect score with 3 strikes. Nobody in professional baseball even bats as well as the justice system expects you to, and you can even swing once and get all 3 strikes at once. I got out of jail several months back for driving w/o insurance, and there was an undercover cop in a taxi cab in the parking lot of pinellas county jail/courthouse trying to get people to purchase a ride home with their EBT (food stamp) card.
The question of capital punishment aside, Clemons is guilty. He confessed to two rapes and two murders. Two of his accomplices confessed to the rapes and murders and a third confessed to rape. These confessions were taped and signed. Clemons claims police brutality, a coerced confession, but several witnesses, including a fingerprint technician and a Clemons family friend, testified twenty years ago and at last week's hearing that Clemons didn't show signs of having been beaten after the confession. That confession was rightly used against him as just one piece of evidence in the trial. Physical evidence isn't needed for a guilty verdict, but there was physical evidence, including DNA evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing.
The weekend following the crimes, several witnesses--including friends of the convicted--heard Clemons and accomplice Marlin Gray brag about having committed the crimes. Gray stole a victim's watch and was seen wearing it. Gray stashed the watch at a friend's house and it was located by detectives (physical evidence that put Gray and his cohorts at the crime scene and further evidence that the victim had been robbed). Gray didn't even dispute the watch. In his court testimony he admits to wearing the watch and stashing it. Why? Because his friends, including his girlfriend, testified that he had it.
Research this case. Read the court testimony. All I've said is there.
I think if an innocent person is executed and it comes out that the cops/prosecution did crooked things they should either be imprisoned or executed. I do not see how any decent person could do things that cause an innocent person to die.
You either support the death penalty or you do not.
And the only way you will ever end this government't policy of execution is to join with those who believe in small government. It also means joining with those who want to end free trade, end work visas, and cut immigration to just a few people. These are the kinds of coalitions that can bring about change.
Neither of the big government corporate parties (Dems and GOP) will ever change anything.
Our nation's motto is "In God We Trust".
We, as a nation, cage or kill those people deemed dangerous.
We, as a nation, insist on having the most expensive and most powerful military in human history.
Our society removes children from parents "we" don't "trust" to raise them appropriately.
Our government has put cameras at every major intersection and along every major highway and interconnected public and private cameras and computers to spy on us in addition to many satalites in space and drones that do the same thing.
Our government listens to practically the whole world talk using technology.
Our government is, state by state, seeking to take away the "free will" of women by seeking to deny them right of women to make their their own reproductive and lifestyle choices.
Our government regulates the drugs some of us seem to need to make themselves fell good.
Our government guards our borders.
Our government inspects our food.
Our government licenses the airwaves for communication.
Our government tells us we don't have a right to choose when we end our lives.
So, tell me, just what the %^#& is it that we do "trust" "God" to do?
And putting anything in a cage does not necessarily render it harmless. Been to any prison riots lately? It just puts the lives of inmates who may be serving less dangerous crimes at risk of being seriously harmed at their hands or our guards being harmed. Not to mention what many of you force our guards into having to do to keep them in their cages. I speak of those who commit violent crimes who have already proven to us, they have no love for humanity, not even themselves. For no one who loves would put themselves willingly into a prison cell for the rest of their lives unless they felt there was some advantage in doing so or they have already deemed their own lives of little value to them. Only those who commit murder in self-defense or to protect an innocent life should be excluded from this final sentence.
I am more than tired of repeat offenders and those of you who refuse to enforce the proper punishment to suit the crime. Not to mention make criminals out of good people by forcing them to put their own lives in danger to keep them in their cages. While pretending it has no effect on their own personal lives.
I want more good people to live and fewer evil ones to drive good people to have to kill. We must put to death the worst of our kind. There is nothing civilized with releasing known, violent, criminals back into our society. Nor is it more civilized to insist they live in cages like wild beasts to further corrupt others with their taint.
By eliminating the death penalty you are opening the door for more vigilante justice. If we cannot trust our legal system to protect innocents from being harmed then we will just have to do so ourselves. We cannot afford to keep every violent criminal behind bars nor can we ensure that our attempts to do so are foolproof. If anything we have more evidence of the failure of our justice system then we do its' success stories in rehabilitation.
The South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services voted 7-0 to pardon Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin for the 1913 murder of former Confederate Army veteran John Q. Lewis.
There is no way to tell how many of the over 1,000 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent. Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead. Defense attorneys move on to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. Some cases with strong evidence of innocence include:
Carlos DeLuna Texas Conviction: 1983, Executed: 1989
Ruben Cantu Texas Convicted: 1985, Executed: 1993
Larry Griffin Missouri Conviction: 1981, Executed: 1995
Joseph O'Dell Virginia Conviction: 1986, Executed: 1997
David Spence Texas Conviction: 1984, Executed: 1997
Leo Jones Florida Convicted: 1981, Executed: 1998
Gary Graham Texas Convicted: 1981, Executed: 2000,
Claude Jones Texas Convicted 1989, Executed 2000
Cameron Willingham Texas Convicted: 1992, Executed: 2004
Troy Davis Georgia Convicted 1991 Executed 2011
Newly-available DNA evidence has allowed the exoneration and release of more than 15 death row inmates since 1992 in the United States, but DNA evidence is available in only a fraction of capital cases. Others have been released on the basis of weak cases against them, sometimes involving prosecutorial misconduct; resulting in acquittal at retrial, charges dropped, or innocence-based pardons.