By this point, almost everyone knows the story of Troy Davis, who was executed last night after a twenty-two year legal battle over a case built on scant evidence and glaring questions. Everyone has, I suspect, reflected on what this tragic miscarriage of justice means to them and their country. I will not, then, issue a polemic about the unjust horror which occurred last night. Instead I will offer a few reflections on my own experience yesterday evening. It might not amount to a hill of beans in a country that would send an innocent man to death. But it is, at this point, all I have to offer.
As soon as I heard that a protest had arisen, I hopped in a cab and requested a speedy trip to the Supreme Court. My cab driver, Abdul, was listening to Amy Goodman on 89.3, and he was eager to engage me in conversation.
“It’s disgusting what they’re doing!” he told me. “They’re killing this man for no reason. No reason! This is not America.”
I eagerly concurred, and asked that he perhaps hit the gas a little harder.
“No rush,” Abdul said. “I have faith. I know they will let him live.”
In about fifteen minutes, Abdul delivered me to the Supreme Court, where a protest of over a hundred people was in full swing. The crowd was quite diverse; people of every race, ethnicity, gender, and age were represented. I grabbed a sign and joined the protest circle, and together we chanted “I am Troy Davis; we are Troy Davis” and “they say death; we say no; take Troy Davis off death row.”
After about forty minutes, a woman’s voice rose above the crowd. “Confirmed by CNN, MSNBC, and Democracy Now!”--her voice cracked--“the Supreme Court has refused a stay for Troy Davis. He will be executed shortly.” There were several seconds of silence, then a different voice broke the quiet with a husky roar:
“I AM TROY DAVIS.”
The crowd responded:
“WE ARE TROY DAVIS.”
This went on for a few minutes, before silence descended once more, this time punctuated by suppressed sobs.
We all huddled around a man holding up his iPhone, which was tuned into the Democracy Now!live feed from Atlanta. Several people in Amnesty International shirts passed around candles. We were alerted that Davis would be executed at 11:05 PM; everyone I laid eyes upon was crying. I certainly was. Sometime around 11:10, we received word that Troy Davis was dead. Several women and men started singing “We Shall Overcome.” Everyone joined in. The grief was palpable. It was a devastating moment.
Once the song was finished, we joined hands in a prayer circle and a reverend whose name I didn’t catch gave a brief but beautiful sermon. He stressed the importance of love and forgiveness over hate and revenge, and ended with a reminder that “we arise tomorrow with work to do.” Each of us had a chance to express our feelings over the tragedy; I’ll let the words spoken there remain private. After the circle had dispersed, Vail Kohnert-Yount, the president of the Georgetown University College Democrats, arrived with a friend and gave me a hug I sorely needed. We lingered for a bit, still in shock over what had occurred, then began the trip home.
I don’t know what happens next, now that Troy Davis is dead, now that this odious wound has been permanently inflicted on our country. A lot of people are angry, and rightfully so; some of them might not have considered capital punishment before, or may even have supported it. The cause to abolish the death penalty undoubtedly has more supporters this morning than it did yesterday afternoon. I just wish Troy Davis didn’t have to become a martyr in the process.
Personally, I think what people need most to see is that this is not an anomaly; it is business as usual. This case is an example of the system working perfectly. Twenty-two years of trials and appeals led to this. This is what the system is designed to lead to; it is the ideal death penalty case. To slam the Troy Davis tragedy as an aberration or an isolated incident is to overlook the bigger picture, the fact that capital punishment is an expensive, ineffectual, brutal, bigoted, outdated, morally perverse, and grotesque practice. If you still support the death penalty, I must ask: how can you justify this to yourself? How can you defend a system which baldly targets the poor and people of color, which is endlessly expensive, which tarnished our image to the world, which deters not at all? How can you vindicate state-sponsored murder?
But pontificating does me no good; minds are made up by personal reflection, not by opinion pieces. Instead, I’d like to point out that even at this extremely dark hour, there exists still a glimmer of hope. Recently, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, and Illinois abolished the death penalty, and several other states (including my neighbor, Maryland) are not far behind. Support for capital punishment is at a new low, one which will surely plummet even further in the next poll, and the protests which sprouted up across the country yesterday were both well-attended and well-publicized. On the legal side, a recent string of court victories severely limited the scope of the death penalty, while a number of state supreme courts have either put a moratorium on capital punishment or ended it altogether.
Considering all this, it is very possible that ours may be the generation to win this fight, to return to common sense and compassion and morality. As with the battle for marriage equality, this will be a steep hill, but we must make our voices heard. Last night may have been the first step in this long trek toward justice, for though an innocent man was executed, people all across the world heard our voices rise together to a shout:
We are Troy Davis.