printThe macabre count down to an execution is always a horrible affair—for all except a few sorts like Ann Coulter. She has never encountered a country she didn’t think the US should level, or an execution not worth carrying out. The commutation of the death sentence of Troy Davis (who has since been executed) seemed eminently reasonable to me (who supports the death penalty) in light of the fact that, according to reports, the Davis sentenced was based on eye-witness testimony, which is always iffy. (Surprisingly, Chris Matthews covered the case well, looking at all angles and evidence.)
The assertions of “racism,” however, are as despicable as Coulter’s prod to kill.
I am so sick of people (many of them in the liberty camp) who think their moral status is elevated by fingering others as racists. Cut that crap already. As one of my readers pointed out, on the very same day that Davis was scheduled to die a white man “was headed to the death chamber … for the infamous dragging death 13 years ago of James Byrd Jr., a black man from Jasper in East Texas.”
Argue on the merits of a case, don’t make amorphous, feel-good charges of racism.
I agree with BARRY SCHECK, who raised a reasonable case for commutation:
…at the Innocence Project, we have over 275 people who were
exonerated with post-conviction DNA evidence. And, remember, DNA evidence
is only present in less than 5 percent of criminal cases. So, what about
all the other ones where there may be eyewitness misidentification, perhaps
as happened in the Troy Davis case or bad forensic evidence that we know
definitely happened in the Troy Davis case?
It’s futile to remind Republicans like Coulter that commutation is not exoneration. Republicans generally confine their appreciation for the sanctity of life to fussing over fetuses; about fully formed human-beings they don’t care as much.