By Spencer Freund

I have never been a fan of the death penalty. The whole idea about using murder to punish murder has never sat well with me. Therefore, when I first heard about the Troy Davis case, I was displeased. However, I was even more disturbed when I learned the details behind the case. In 1991, Troy Davis was convicted for murdering the police officer Mark MacPhail. On the day of his death, MacPhail was working as a security guard at a Burger King. However, while working he noticed a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. He intervened, but he was unfortunately shot and killed in the process. The shooter was supposedly Troy Davis. During the 1991 trial, seven witnesses testified that they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail. Two other witnesses confessed that Davis had admitted the killing to them. At first this seems like ample evidence to convict someone, but when you look deeper into the case, you begin to realize that it isn’t much evidence at all. The trial included no physical evidence against Davis. In addition, the prosecution did not produce any murder weapon, DNA evidence, or surveillance tapes. Later, several of the witnesses either recanted or significantly changed their stories. The two people who had said Davis confessed to the shooting later said that they had been lying. Therefore the whole case rested on a few, unreliable eyewitness accounts. Nonetheless, the 1991 trial concluded that Troy Davis was guilty, and he was sentenced to death.

In 2007, the U.S Supreme Court realized the major flaws within the case. The Supreme Court then ordered a lower to court to have a retrial. However, in this trial Davis was required to prove his innocence. This goes against the very fabrics of our nation’s judicial system. A man is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. And it is much harder to prove one’s innocence than it is to cast doubts as to one’s guilt. Not surprisingly, Davis was not able to “prove his innocence” in this trial, and the ruling was upheld.

The whole decision to execute Davis was unconstitutional and immoral. When you sentence someone to death, you need to be absolutely sure of his or her guilt. If there are any doubts at all, the case should be reviewed. And let’s face it, there were certainly a lot of doubts throughout this entire case. In nearly every other death sentence there has been DNA evidence against the accused. Physical evidence cannot lie and cannot be confused. People on the other hand, can certainly make mistakes. Therefore it is unreasonable and unjust to murder a man on the basis that a few people said that the shooter looked a bit like Davis. Furthermore, Davis was not given a fair trial, especially in the 2007 appeal. We should have thrown away the results of that trial due to the fact that he was asked to prove his innocence. Unfortunately, another trial did not occur and Davis was executed on September 21st.

Davis maintained his innocence until his death. His very last words, which were directed at the MacPhail family, were “I was not the one who personally killed your son, your brother, your father.” Although, it isn’t clear whether Davis was truly innocent, the fact remains that he may have been. The evidence against him simply wasn’t enough, and we may have executed an innocent man. Hopefully, our judicial system will learn from this case, and only use the death penalty when there is zero doubt. Multiple fair trials must be done, and the courts should not be able to nonchalantly sentence a man to death. Killing an innocent man is no better than murder.