“If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated” these were the words of former US President Jimmy Carter after learning of Troy’s execution.
After spending 22 years behind bars and 19 years on death row having been convicted of the murder of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989, Troy Davis was finally executed by lethal injection in a Prison in Jackson on September 21, 2011 after the guilty verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 23 worded document.
But what makes this case completely mystifying is a man was executed with no DNA evidence, no murder weapon, and no further concrete physical proof other than eye witness accounts. It is more like you wake up and someone accuses you of murder and you are then sentenced to death for it simply because you were at the crime scene and your personal character is questionable. Since the verdict, not only has 7 out of 9 witnesses in the Troy case have either recanted or backed off their trial testimony but also others have pointed out to the possibility that another man at the scene fired the weapon. And yet with all this doubt, Troy Davis was still executed.
The execution has triggered a lot of mixed reactions across the world from pro and anti death penalty advocates alike with the likes of former US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, hip-hop star Sean 'P Diddy' Combs, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Reverend Al Sharpton, and many more openly voicing their concerns.
Troy, like many other condemned inmates continued to profess his innocence to his death. Even as he was strapped to a gurney awaiting the lethal injection, he said “I’d like to address the MacPhail family…I’m not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother. I am innocent….All I can ask….is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth.” The big question then is; what if a few years down the road the murder weapon is found and DNA evidence exonerates Troy Davis?
This question underscores the utmost relevance of abolishing the death penalty. Infact, executing a perpetrator exonerates him from pain and anguish and instead unjustly victimizes the blameless family and friends who have to go through the agony of losing one they love. Let’s face it; the real punishment would be to serve a prison sentence with no possibility of parole. We need to start discussing about a substitute penal sanction of death penalty because the truth is that death penalty is simply outdated, unjust, and barbaric.
In Uganda, no civilians have been executed since 1999 a time when 28 death row prisoners were hanged at Luzira prison. However, civilian courts continue to sentence convicts to death. An attempt to have it abolished by the Uganda Supreme Court failed when the court ruled that death penalty per se should remain constitutional in Uganda. The court nevertheless made a vital pronouncement which stated that mandatory application of the death penalty is unconstitutional signifying a major success towards the abolition of the death penalty in the country.
The court further ruled that after three years, a condemned prisoner will have suffered unusual and cruel punishment and the death sentence ought to be commuted to life imprisonment.
Judiciary has done its part. It is now upon the elected leadership of this country to abolish this inhuman and cruel form of penalty from the civilian courts. Troy’s lawyer Thomas Ruffin describes such execution as “a legalized lynching”. Half of the most part, it indeed is “lynching” only that here it is being carried out by the state rather than a bunch of lawless hooligans on the street. There has to be better ways of punishing offenders.
Masake Anthony
The writer works with Uganda Law Society.
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