printIf it hasn’t yet, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, reconsidering the death sentence of Troy Davis, ought to consult Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus. According to Dr. Loftus’ seminal work, eye-witness testimony is terribly unreliable.
A man should not be put to death based solely on the testimony of eye-witnesses most of whom have since recanted.
Troy Anthony Davis (born October 9, 1968) was convicted of the August 19, 1989, murder of Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a restaurant when he intervened in an argument between several men in a nearby parking lot. He was shot in the heart and face without having drawn his gun. One of the men, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, went to police and implicated Davis in the killing, and Davis was arrested four days later. During Davis’ 1991 trial, many witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail. Two others testified that Davis had confessed the murder to them. The murder weapon was never found, and no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime. Throughout his trial and subsequent appeals, Davis has maintained his innocence. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in August 1991.
(I discovered the work of this leading world authority on memory in the late 1990s, when I was writing and raging about the the recovered memory ruse. I also heard Dr. Loftus testify in court thereby securing a man’s liberty. As is obvious from the prominence of characters like Drs. Phil and Drew Pinsky, the profession of psychology is festooned with popularizers, poor thinkers and plain charlatans. Elizabeth F. Loftus has always stood apart.)
On the other hand, Joshua Komisarjevsky needs killing.
He and his accomplice, Steven Hayes (already waiting to die), were arrested at the scene of the crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. He and Hayes had just killed all three—and raped two—of the women of the Petit family. They then proceeded to burn down the house.
UPDATE I (Sept. 20): “Breaking News vial Amnesty International: The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to Troy Davis on Tuesday. This means that very little is standing in the way of the state executing a potentially innocent man this Wednesday.” Amnesty International is “calling on the Board to reconsider its decision, and on the Chatham County (Savannah) District Attorney Larry Chisolm to do the right thing.”
More from Amnesty International:
Death penalty supporters like Bob Barr, former Texas Governor Mark White, and former FBI Director William Sessions also support clemency in this case, for the same reason. And at least three jurors from Davis’ trial have asked for his execution to be called off. Putting Troy Davis to death would be a grave injustice to those jurors who believe they sentenced Davis to death based on questionable information.
Although I want to see the Troy Davis death sentence commuted, I don’t like the way this cause celebre has the media omitting mention of the name of the victim. “A police officer from Savannah” is how this lot is referring to the late Mark Allen MacPhail. Google throws up not much about this heroic, off-duty officer. You have to dig:
The 27-year-old former Army Ranger was moonlighting on a security detail when he ran to help a homeless man, who had cried out because he was being pistol whipped. MacPhail was shot three times before he could draw his handgun.
Understandably, The victim’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, has expressed the need for closure. She believes, however, that executing Davis will give her a sense of finality. Killing a man who may not have pulled the trigger is not the kind of closure a victim has the right to demand. A commutation of the death sentence would probably still mean life in jail for Davis. That should suffice.
PLEASE NOTE:
http://www.ajc.com/news/parole-board-denies-clemency-1184524.html
I wonder how much better a hearing Troy Davis would have received by the Pardon and Parole Board if the death penalty did not have so much politics involved. Arnold S. is a bad name in Austria, because he did not commute a sentence in California. Gov. Perry had the President of Mexico interceding in a Texas case. Both of which had clearly guilty parties involved. The amount of anger over the Libyan plane bomber. Now they are in the national news and any decision they make, will be denounced worldwide. If they had been allowed to quietly review the case in private, would they have came to the same decision?
Here in NZ they had a murder retrial some 15 years after the original. But some specialist quack admitted on TV that there’s a small problem with asking witnesses to repeat their testimonies 15 years later – and no it’s not that they might forget. Apparently, every time the brain accesses a memory it slightly alters that memory. So the more you dwell on certain memories, the more they change. That’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard!
While I vehemently agree with your argument regarding witnesses Ilana, I am not much concerned with Mr. Davis.
His gun was used to shoot two people that same night, although he says he ‘gave’ the gun away earlier in the evening. Huh? He was undoubtedly at the scene of at least the first shooting.
And two people say he confessed to the shooting; one his friend, and the other an inmate (who I admit probably has a conflict of interest given the stupidity of deal-making lawyers).
I do not believe death sentences should depend on eye witness accounts. From the facts as I know them, Mr. Davis is not a good example.
Keep the “facts” the same, switch race: white gunsel kills black cop. Think we’d be getting all this clemancy crap from the MSM cosmics? Think again.
This is not in regard to you or the other people who are protesting in regard to the thought that Davis might be innocent; but the ‘anti-death penalty movement itself. One thing that bothers me in this matter. Texas is going to execute a white man for killing a black man (Tonight I think.) “http://news.yahoo.com/white-supremacist-set-die-texas-dragging-174234467.html” I have no problem with Texas giving this guy a needle, but as one commenter on the story noted. The man being executed in Texas is white. Everyone protested the death penalty of the black man in California. Even the President of Mexico protested the execution of the Hispanic for raping and killing two girls in Texas. But, no one says a word about the death penalty for the white man. Maybe the people who are against the death penalty itself are peeking under their blindfolds.
Too right, RG. For the facts, look at Coulter’s essay on the (now deceased)cop killer. This heart-bleed by Ilana is not one of her more impressive essays.
I am not now nor have I ever been against the death penalty. But I have seen too many instances of apparent prosecutorial and/or law enforcement malfeasance just to get a conviction. I wish I could draw a brilliant conclusion here but I can’t. It’s just a tough call all the way around. I’ll leave it up to Ilana to to wax brilliant.
Compassionate Fascist: I don’t read Coulter or most other Republican/conservative press, so I can’t comment on her essay. I can’t fault Ilana on her essay either. I do believe that most so called fights for justice are triggered (by whites) against whites in support of other races. World wide, whites are not a majority race- so its not minorities; but, a specific prejudice against a race, with the US as the battleground. Non-white countries execute people all the time without a tremor or protest comment, wiping out whole tribes without more than a mention in the news is common anywhere else.
I agree that Davis should not have gotten the death penalty, because the evidence was very circumstantial. I’m not against the death penalty, but I think there should be a higher burden of proof than what currently exists for the death sentence.