RIP Troy Davis

[Stallion]

http://www.news.com.au/world/troy-a...ppeals-exhausted/story-e6frfkyi-1226143621482

I'm actually fucking sick to my stomach. While I'm only mostly sure he was innocent, the fact that 7 of the 9 witnesses recanted their statements (and pointed out one of the two who didn't recant as the killer) years ago and that no physical evidence of his was at the crime......I hate the death penalty for anything short of terrorist masterminds (and even then the taking of a human life makes me uneasy), but to see it happen when guilt wasn't even a certainty and in fact unlikely. I know not all the state justice systems have the death penalty but the American "justice" system looks really bad as a whole to the rest of the world. RIP Troy.....may your death serve to fix the wrongs in a very flawed justice system and encourage the pursuit of the truth till the end. As for Smogon, what do you guys think about this all?

 

[internet]

why is the thread icon a :) face

 

[Box]

My sentiments exactly OP.

 

[Stallion]

I have no idea how that happened, I'm on an iPhone....if a mod could fix that or tell me how to that'd be amazing.

Edit: fixed. Back to discussion.

 

[Arch]

Fuck yeah, America! Our crappy justice system strikes fear into the hearts of men!

 

[DM]

As if a black man could get a fair trial in Georgia 20 years ago. I would like to believe that wouldn't happen anymore, but I'm not so sure that's true.

 

[matty]

I'd rather let 100 guilty go free, than punish 1 innocent man

Absolutely pathetic what our "justice" system has become in America

 

[Alan]

I didn't even know about this until the other day, as I don't really watch the news or check yahoo or anything, but that does seem kind of bullshit that he gets arrested and tried for murder when he didn't even have a gun on him. Guys like OJ get off scott free and he had fucking blood of his girlfriend/wife on his clothes? Like, really? Really Georgia? You guys are still racist as fuck?

Also:

As if a black man could get a fair trial in Georgia 20 years ago.

This is fairly accurate.

I don't blame the justice so much as I blame how racist the south is that they would convict him in the fucking first place when there was no evidence against him.

 

[Shining_Latios]

I didn't even know what was is until this morning when I saw it on the news. He wasn't even certainly guilty. I think the death penalty has to go. No one should lose their life no matter how bad of a crime they commited. If it's a very bad crime, then put them in jail for the rest of their lives, just don't kill them, I mean seriously...

 

[Alan]

I didn't even know what was is until this morning when I saw it on the news. He wasn't even certainly guilty. I think the death penalty has to go. No one should lose their life no matter how bad of a crime they commited. If it's a very bad crime, then put them in jail for the rest of their lives, just don't kill them, I mean seriously...

Um, that's pretty dumb. Tax payers (me, you, etc.) pay for people to sit in a prison cell for whatever crime they committed. Seeing as how I lose enough money in taxes as it is, I would like them to go for things I support. Honestly, if someone kills someone else, they should die too. Might as well just kill serial rapists too. I'd rather have my tax dollars go to highway repair or school supplies or something than prisons. Or, we could just privatize prisons. Either way. Also this is off topic so that's the last thing I'll reply.

 

[Shining_Latios]

Um, that's pretty dumb. Tax payers (me, you, etc.) pay for people to sit in a prison cell for whatever crime they committed. Seeing as how I lose enough money in taxes as it is, I would like them to go for things I support. Honestly, if someone kills someone else, they should die too. Might as well just kill serial rapists too. I'd rather have my tax dollars go to highway repair or school supplies or something than prisons. Or, we could just privatize prisons. Either way. Also this is off topic so that's the last thing I'll reply.

Saying someone deserves to die is not right. No one deserves to die. Yes, even though they did something very horrible they should just keep them in jail then.

 

[YoshiX]

Um, that's pretty dumb. Tax payers (me, you, etc.) pay for people to sit in a prison cell for whatever crime they committed. Seeing as how I lose enough money in taxes as it is, I would like them to go for things I support. Honestly, if someone kills someone else, they should die too. Might as well just kill serial rapists too. I'd rather have my tax dollars go to highway repair or school supplies or something than prisons. Or, we could just privatize prisons. Either way. Also this is off topic so that's the last thing I'll reply.

Death sentences are often just as costly as life sentences.

 

[theamericandream38]

Death sentences are often just as costly as life sentences.

But only because government lets morality get in the way. Logically, death penalties are far superior to life sentences, and can be done at a much cheaper cost (i.e. cost of a few bullets). I'm not advocating this level of cutthroat justice, but there is certainly an argument to be made for it.

OT: Standard fare for the American justice system, sadly. I wish I could say that we've grown past this sort of thing, but as DM said, I'm not entirely sure that something this absurd couldn't happen today.

 

[Arch]

I'm pretty sure it costs more to convict and execute than incarcerating a person for life.

 

[Synre]

I'm a little skeptical about the abillity of this forum to have a discussion on capital punishment that isn't 7th grade research paper quality but since there isn't much to say on-topic here, do what you will, but I'm watching.



OT, I'm not super bothered by the original conviction, because while it is a disturbing reminder of how corrupt and stupid some fellow humans are(false testimony leading to a life sentence and eventually the death sentence? Seriously?), I'm a little surprise the killing didn't get at least delayed in light of the public pressure... I thought for sure it'd get delayed forever while evidence to clear him was searched for but never found. Little worrying that someone, somewhere didn't step in... kind of makes you wonder how much(little) twenty years has changed.

 

[iDunno]

If the prison system in the US didn't suck so much ass we wouldn't really even need the death penalty as much as we do now. Oh wait I forgot they aren't prisons, they're "correctional facilities". How could I have made such a mistake!

Synre, it might not be as much racism as it is about it being very hard to overturn. They had already postponed the killing once and through that time, no physical evidence came about that actually incriminated Sylvester Coles, the man who was said by the former witnesses to have really committed the crime, so those that said he did it really have no real credibility. All of those who had recanted their statements could have done it under the pressure. They might have just not wanted it on their consciences having this man's blood on their hands. A testimony under oath has much more credibility than recantations after the fact. Calling off a death sentence is VERY risky for the state judicial system's credibility in the state. For all we know, they could give him amnesty and it could later turn out he actually did it. I'm not saying that what they did was right. I'm just trying to look at it through their perspective.

But yes it is a travesty.

and they probably are just racist fucks

 

[Yeah Galo Sengan]

a man was legally murdered yesterday

i watched the events unfold with a kind of fascinated horror

total fucking miscarriage of 'justice'

 

[verbatim]

I have a tendency to not decide whether or not I believe popular criminals are "guilty" or not because of how eschewed the media portrays them. However, if their is any chance of someone being not guilty (i.e., all but two people taking back their statements and one of the two guys that didn't is the secondary suspect) then execution should immediately and permanently be kicked down to a life-sentence (if its hard to tell) or outright freedom.

 

[mattj]

As if a black man could get a fair trial in Georgia 20 years ago. I would like to believe that wouldn't happen anymore, but I'm not so sure that's true.

I know this is going to be taken wrong, and I'm not here to stir stuff up, but I think this case has gotten a bad case of media hype. His execution wasn't a result of his conviction 20 years ago in a racist state alone. His execution has been stayed three times, and his conviction appealed many more. Just as recently as August of last year, a judge looked at his request and said "No. The original case was justified, and your complaints don't hold merit." There was physical (ballistic) evidence that tied him to the crime. And while several witnesses either changed or recanted their testimony, there are still eyewitnesses that to this day say he was the man they saw kill Mark MacPhail.

I'm no legal scholar and I wasn't there so I don't know if Troy Davis is guilty or not. But I can't see how this could be a case of a racism in America and a man being found guilty of being Black. It's not like they convicted him, then walked him out to a tree and hung him. He was allowed to appeal his conviction, present evidence, stay his execution time after time after time. I can, however, see how this could be a case of media hype and misinformation.

 

[Fabbles]

I think everyone here is forgetting the reason why the death penalty costs more than incarceration: mandatory appeals. It is not the means of execution that costs so much, it is the lawyer's fees for all of the appeals which cost the big bucks.

I believe to house someone in jail costs 30K+ per year, might be closer to 40k+.

I think the conviction might be "racist" in the fact that he received the death penalty: the sentencing can also be influenced by race. So the judges could be right that the case against Troy holds, just not that he should receive such a steep penalty.

 

[6-Dimension]

I can't say I know enough about the case to decide whether or not I believe he was innocent, but the fact that there was any doubt means that he should not have been killed. Completely ridiculous.

 

[DM]

I'm a little skeptical about the abillity of this forum to have a discussion on capital punishment that isn't 7th grade research paper quality but since there isn't much to say on-topic here, do what you will, but I'm watching.

Kinda true. It's awful how many people (not just on Smogon, but in America) don't truly understand how our criminal justice system works. I can't tell you how many angry "FUCK THE SUPREME COURT" messages I've seen since yesterday, which is just the most ignorant, misguided nonsense you could say about this situation.

I also tend to agree with mattj. I'm glad that this man's case got so much attention, but nothing is going to change from this. Georgia will still be racist, blacks will still have problems getting fair trials in the South (and everywhere, really), and innocent people will continue to be thrown into prison. I hate to be a pessimist, but... <------ law student.

 

[kakky]

I fail to see how racism can adequately be blamed in jury trials. Are you honestly claiming that every single person in the jury disliked black people? I find it laughable how much people go on and on about "racism in the south" when they a) don't live there and b) neglect to realize just how many black people actually live down there. Or are the black people racist against black people too?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah,_Georgia#Demographics
"The racial makeup of the city was 57.08% Black, 36.09% White"

Good luck getting a "racist" jury from that.

 

[Nastyjungle]

i don't think people really neglect how many black people live in the south, its where all the slaves were in the united states and when the civil war ended they didn't just all pack up and head for the north

that being said white people in the south (not all, but a lot) are hugely racist
and yes, black people can be racist against black people too

not trying to say anything about how racism was in the trail, i just wanted to throw that out there

if there was any shadow of a doubt at all this man should not have been put to death, this was an astronomical failure in the us justice system

 

[DM]

I fail to see how racism can adequately be blamed in jury trials. Are you honestly claiming that every single person in the jury disliked black people? I find it laughable how much people go on and on about "racism in the south" when they a) don't live there and b) neglect to realize just how many black people actually live down there. Or are the black people racist against black people too?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah,_Georgia#Demographics
"The racial makeup of the city was 57.08% Black, 36.09% White"

Good luck getting a "racist" jury from that.

I don't think you have any appreciation whatsoever for American race relations, let alone how they were 20 years ago.