I Am Troy Davis

“On 19 May 2009, Amnesty International held a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London calling for the commutation of Troy Davis’ death sentence. We recorded people’s messages of solidarity, which we are sending to Troy and his family.”

Update: “On May 20, twenty-seven former judges and prosecutors from across the political spectrum filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis.”

Click here for details, and for links to both the amicus brief and the original writ of habeas corpus.

Troy Davis Redux

Here is an update of the Troy Davis case, courtesy of Bob Herbert in today’s New York Times:

Bob Herbert: In the Absence of Proof.

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, you can use the search box on the right and type in Troy Davis for several pertinent articles and summaries on the case.

The Troy Davis case should matter to everyone, because of the legal ramifications that Georgia is setting with its rush to execution.

Of course, only those living on the fringes of society will ever feel the real pain of Georgia’s arbitrary “justice,” so I guess it’s okay and painfully predictable for the majority to live in blissful ignorance.

Troy Anthony Davis homepage

Amnesty International: Take Action, Troy Davis

Article written by Troy Davis’ sister and published in The Gaurdian, including various embedded links.

Photo downloaded from: Law and Disorder Radio.org

Misplaced Sympathies?

I have Liddy and Congress on this afternoon in the background, in between writing spurts.

I have to admit, though I may be tarred and feathered for this, that I’m feeling pity for Liddy, after a particularly scathing examination by a Democrat whose name I didn’t catch, but has repeated about 40 times that he is “a contract attorney.”

The amount of posturing by our “public servants” all for the good of the “American people” is really underwhelming and grating at best.

On one level, these hearings are ludicrous . . . the inbreeding between big business and American government has been so deep for so many years now, it’s obscene.

But you wouldn’t think it to listen to these hearings.

The public servants arise anew, reborn for the good of We The People.

<yawn>

I get the public’s anger.  I am one of those who understands that the money is one tenth of one percent that weighs in at 50 percent, given our current economic hardship.

The money is symbolic, gets to the heart of what most Americans live in everyday, the most invisible layer of culture, because unlike race and gender, its markers are elusive: class division, in a culture devoted to to denial through acquisition’s narcotic effects.

Making Liddy a scapegoat is just wrong; he jumped on the boat late in the game, and many in Congress are more than happy to crucify this man to make themselves look good. He’s no angel. But he’s no Devil, and Congress members ought not feed the hate for their own good.

And Liddy’s having to stand in for the incompetence, greed, and class entitlement of all the AIG executives, though his term there has been relatively short, a fact that many Congress members choose to ignore.

Very little moral high road here, in this viewer’s opinion.

Just more theater, on both sides of the aisle.

With a few exceptions, a self-serving debacle for our elected officials.

Post-script:  During the “hearings,” the Fed announced it was buying an additional TRILLION in securities to aide the economy.

All in all, a very good day for . . .

the Chinese.

New Troy Davis Song and Video

Steve from Amnesty International stopped by last night and commented on my most recent Troy Davis Update.

He posted this YouTube link to a newly released video written and recorded by State Radio, a group I’m happy to discover is from Boston, just across the river from The Bandit.

Thanks Steve for letting me know about this video.

Thanks State Radio for getting the word out.

Visit Troy Anthony Davis for more information.

Troy Davis Update

There’s been no movement on the Troy Davis case.

And while Bernie Madoff sits under “house arrest” in his Upper East Side penthouse, among the comforts and luxuries acquired while helping contribute to the global economic collapse, a man for whom there is more than reasonable doubt sits waiting on death row, his execution stayed yet again.

The Troy Davis site has posted new links, several of which are worth posting here:

• The Economist: A Trebly Dubious Death Sentence. An incisive article by a stalwart information source, it rightly calls the case “a hideous mess.” A mess that needs to be examined and untangled, instead of executing a man for expediency’s sake.
• UCC Minister Offers To Die For Troy Davis. A poignant tribute to life and justice, while calling attention to the death penalty’s strange moral stance.
• New Song Written For Troy. Well crafted and performed, the song carries a compelling message.  Many of you will feel the place it comes from.

********************

Protect Troy.

Guide those who are helping him.

Comfort his family.

Lead us to wisdom and  justice.

Be with Mark MacPhail’s family as they deal with their grief.  Give them the comfort they seek, and deliver to them the resolution that they deserve.

Amen.

Troy Davis’ Letter to Friends and Supporters

For those of you following the Troy Davis case, good news! According to Troy’s website, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted oral arguments to be heard, 9 December in Atlanta at 1:00 p.m.

The The Troy Anthony Davis site has also posted a letter from Troy to friends and supporters. I have reprinted it here, in its entirety, with the permission of Amnesty International.

Please consider visiting the Troy Davis site, learning about the case, and if you are so inclined, dropping Troy a note.

“This is a message from Troy Anthony Davis
November 2008

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe.

I want you to know that the trauma placed on me and my family as I have now faced execution and the death chamber 3 times is more punishment than most can bare; yet as I face this state santioned terror, I realize one constant, my faith is unwavering, the love of my family and friends is massive and the fight for justice and against injustice by activists world-wide has ignited a fire that is raging for Human Rights and Human Dignity. You inspire me, you honor me and as I pray for strength and guidance for my family and loved ones, for the victims family and loved ones, I share with you this struggle, I share with you our triumps, knowing that you add to my strength, my courage and because of that, I share with you my life.

We must Dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

‘I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!’

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!”

(end of letter)

Time Article on Troy Davis

Because the life of one man matters.

Why Women Should Vote

I received the following in an e-mail from my friend Dave, about mid-September.

All of it is true.

The essay’s writer is anonymous, but I thank the woman who wrote it. I recognize her as an everyday hero, one who cares enough to keep history alive.

I offer it here in honor of election day with pride, enthusiasm, and great hope in America’s citizens, men and women of every color and from every religion.

“A Message For All Women

How quickly we forget.

Why Women Should Vote

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

Lucy Burns

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic’.

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

Alice Paul

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

Library of Congress PDF of Women Suffrage Prisoners, including hyperlinks to related LOC archival photos and documents of women prisoners.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels’. It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said. ‘What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use,
my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party, remember to vote.

History is being made.”

(End of e-mail)

To honor my African-American sisters, many of whom have too long wept bitter tears for their loved ones and themselves, I also remember the incomparable Sojourner Truth during this historic election:

Sojourner Truth at Women’s History About.com

Troy Davis: Execution Stayed

Troy Davis’ execution was stayed late this afternoon by the Georgia Supreme Court.

The court gave Mr. Davis’ defense attorneys fifteen days to file a legal brief of their arguments.

According to the Washington Post, a death penalty expert said the court’s decision was surprising: “‘This is extraordinarily rare. The law is very demanding and the Court of Appeals is a very conservative court,’ said Stephen Bright, a death penalty expert who is the head of the Southern Center for Human Rights. ‘It’s just not something that one would expect from this court.’”

Read the entire article here.

Providence may well be stepping in.

For more information on the Troy Davis case, please visit my previous entry Troy Davis: Update, which includes a link to the Troy Davis Call to Action page, and a YouTube video featuring a statement recorded by Troy.

Troy Davis: Update

The Troy Davis site has posted a new date for the execution, 27 October.

If you would like to help Troy Davis, see the call to action page which gives specific steps you can take to help Mr. Davis.

Please consider visiting the call to action page, and writing and calling on Troy’s behalf.

Thank you.

And please consider taking 2:43 to listen to the following recording by Troy.

Supreme Court Clears Way For Troy Davis Execution

Today the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution of Troy Davis by declining to hear his case, after almost two weeks of deliberation. The Court’s behavior teeters on cruel and unusual punishment, having stayed the execution just hours before Mr. Davis was to be put to death on 23 September.

The court was divided on its decision, even though seven witnesses have recanted their testimony against Mr. Davis. There is no physical evidence linking Mr. Davis to the crime, no murder weapon has been found, and three witnesses have stated that another man has confessed to the crime. Mr. Davis’ case reads like a modern variation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird,” though Mr. Davis is charged with the murder of a white man, not the rape of a white woman. Mr. Davis stands as a weary, real life Tom Robinson, and Amnesty International plays the part of Atticus Finch. Other figures to question the fairness of the conviction are Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, and Pope Benedict the XVI.

The court’s decision almost certainly means that Mr. Davis will be speedily executed, though the evidence against him is appalling flimsy–a travesty of justice beyond words in 21st century America. The primary issue argued before the court was the execution of an innocent man: “Mr. Davis’s lawyers had asked the court to determine whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of the innocent. They wrote in a petition in July that the case ‘allows this court an opportunity to determine what it has only before assumed: that the execution of an innocent man is constitutionally abhorrent’” (New York Times).

Rather than tackle Mr. Davis’ innocence or guilt, the court took a conclusive leap in “the decades-long, law-and-order-fueled trend toward restricting appellate avenues in criminal cases may be reaching its gruesome but inevitable conclusion in the case of Troy Davis, a death row inmate who apparently will be executed soon despite a series of post-trial revelations about his lack of culpability that ought to shock the conscience of even the most ardent supports of capital punishment,” writes Andrew Cohen. Cohen concludes his essay by stating, “why the Justices turned away from a case they had sniffed at last month may forever remain a mystery. But what is perfectly clear is that Georgia has now created a virtually unassailable bar to criminal defendants whose shaky convictions are later subverted through the discovery of new evidence or the dissolution of the accuracy, reliability and credibility of important trial evidence. After decades of success, subtle and otherwise, the anti-appeal movement has just now reached its crescendo or, depending upon your point of view, its nadir.” ( A link to the entire article can be found below.)

So why is an innocent man condemned to death, while Wall Street’s greed goes unpunished? While we are collectively wrapped up in all things fiscal, the promise of equality and justice goes ignored.

One more human life taken, until the day we are all “free at last.”

Free of ignorance.  Free of hate.  Free of greed.

New York Times update on the Davis ruling.

Troy Davis website, with links to other information.

The Washington Post article on the Supreme Court’s decision offers a good summary of the case, on the second page.

Andrew Cohen offers a useful and informative analysis, both on the case and its legal ramifications. If you read no other article on the case, read this one. Cohen shows what was at stake in the Davis decision, and why we all should be shaking our heads.

The juxtaposition between Troy Davis’ almost certain execution, and the excitement among so many in Barack Obama’s nomination should give us pause. This election, which offers so many symbols of hope in a world of critical challenges, shouldn’t leave us satisfied, but wanting more.

Senator Obama’s [presumptive] election to the President’s position is racially symbolic, but brings with it the possibility of complacency.

The great danger may be a mass delusion that we have transcended racism, and thus so many of our -isms, because a black man has risen to the highest office of the land.

Meanwhile, our “justice system” is stuffed with disproportionate numbers of black men, and men like Troy have their lives stripped from them with an all too easy ease.

Let’s not be satisfied.

“I Have A Dream,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, transcript, audio, and video, here at American Rhetoric, Top 100 Speeches

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