We must learn from Davis case

Eryn Jane Branch, Reno

Friday, Sept. 30, 2011 | 2 a.m.

I imagine that many readers have heard about the execution of Troy Davis, and asked why Nevadans should care about one man in Georgia? The answer: because Troy Davis represents all that is broken about the death penalty.

Citizen outrage was unprecedented as his execution neared: 630,000 petitions were submitted, 3,000 people protested, and former President Jimmy Carter, 51 members of Congress, and former FBI Director William Sessions requested that the state consider clemency or a stay of execution. The facts of this case were just too uncertain: Seven of the nine witnesses had recanted or significantly revised their testimony, some even suggesting police coercion. No physical evidence was ever found linking Davis to the murder. Davis professed his innocence until his death.

We grieve for and with the families of Davis and Mark MacPhail, who have known no peace over the 20 years that this prosecution has been debated. But we do not believe that one injustice can remedy another.

I am hopeful that the shame and critical conversation this case has triggered will be a flashpoint in American social and criminal justice. Perhaps Troy Davis will come to represent the moment we realized, as a nation, that if any state with a death penalty can legally execute an innocent man, the death penalty should be abolished.

The author is the interim executive director of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty.