News of the trial of Troy Davis, a death row inmate, blew up news sources and social media Wednesday when the supreme court denied, after a delay, an appeal to block Davis' execution sentence.
In 1991 Davis was convicted of the murder of off-duty policeman Mark MacPhail, assaulting another man, Larry Young, with a pistol, shooting Michael Cooper, a passerby in a car, obstructing MacPhail in performance of his duty and possession of a firearm ("Jury Indicts Troy Davis in Slaying" — Nov. 16, 1989. Savannah Evening Press).
After suspicions of key witness testimonies arose, the case was reconsidered, leading to the flurry of media coverage and support from analysts, celebrities and students alike.
I appreciate that the DePauw community appears to be so passionate about the issue, but I nevertheless feel that the critical issues of the case are being disregarded for the sake of more politicized issues.
If Davis is in fact completely innocent, why was his trial only politicized on a national and international scale now, in 2011, 20 years after the conviction? If the police or witnesses were undertaking less-than-democratic means by which to secure testimony, isn't that a larger threat to democracy than the possibility of a death sentence for a convicted "criminal?"
To have strong opinions about Davis' innocence seems reasonable, as long as one can find conclusive arguments that he is innocent of all or some of his crimes. It seems that any information consumers receive about the issue is at this point so dramatized and saturated with bias that it's virtually impossible to be objective.
Additionally, I have to question the direct origin of our seemingly-collective concern of this specific case.
Amnesty International, a leading supporter of Davis, published Wednesday night that "The state of Georgia shamefully executed Troy Davis on Sept. 21, 2011 despite serious doubts about his guilt. But our fight to abolish the death penalty lives on."
The organizations goal seems clear: to utilize Davis' case to support its own anti-death penalty agenda, apparently via a petition and substantial media attention. The fight to abolish the penalty is reasonable, but treating Davis as a case different than any of the other thousands of inmates on death row seems convenient to the point of marginalization. What tangible good did exploiting Davis' final hours with his family do for the organizations supposed larger goal?
Is the injustice that an innocent man may have died this week or that the death penalty exists at all? Is it the a possibility that U.S officers may be questionable? Are we upset that a man's dying words can be exploited to push a political agenda or that his heartfelt story was necessary to bring the issue to light? Are we unsettled about larger, systemic issues concerning race and social class that appear to be this cases elephant in the courtroom? Or do we just think he deserved the final polygraph test he requested so that we can know for sure?
For me, these are big questions that I can't even begin to conceptualize answering. I applaud my fellow students who can feel so passionately and decisively about the issue. Nevertheless, I encourage all students to think critically about their motivation for their own opinions and the sources from which they receive information.
—Ayers is a senior political science major from Cincinnati. She is the opinion editor for The DePauw.
opinion@thedepauw.com