The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People this week will make an inquiry of the United States Justice Department into the scheduled execution of Troy Davis in Georgia.
The rights group is pushing for a stay of execution.
Davis was convicted and sentenced to death for the fatal 1989 shooting and killing of a Georgia Police officer, Mark MacPhail.
A concerted effort has arisen, from lawmakers and rights groups, to change the minds of the five-member Georgia Board of Parole and Probation to stay the September 21 execution.
There is uncertainty surrounding the case. Questions abound, even at this late date, on Davis’ involvement in the MacPhail killing. Seven out of nine eye witnesses have recanted their stories.
WATCH REV. AL SHARPTON’S COVERAGE OF THE TROY DAVIS CASE:
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Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott contends that “It is a bad day in America when you have an inconclusive case and you have to put somebody to death on inconclusive evidence.”
The black Congressman has been opposed to the death penalty since 1978. He sits on the House Crime Sub-Committee. Scott says, “seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony and one of the remaining two is an actual suspect of the murder.”
“There needs to be a stay of execution,” said Hillary Shelton, senior vice president for advocacy and policy for the NAACP. “There is too much evidence that points to contradictions in preceding testimony.”
Former President Jimmy Carter has weighed in against the Davis execution. The Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday will issue a formal statement on the case. Organizations like Amnesty International and the NAACP are also urging people to make their concerns known to the Georgia Parole and Probation board. The board is the sole group responsible for making the decision of life or death for Davis. Their decision, so far, is to move forward with execution by lethal injection.
The issue of reasonable doubt hangs over the case. Would an average or reasonable person looking at this body of evidence conclude the defendant is guilty of the crime? Jurors don’t have to eliminate all doubt. They just have to apply common sense to the facts presented during the trial.
Shelton said the Department of Justice is looking into the matter and is determining if there is any basis for a review. The Supreme Court determined it was a state issue when it declined to hear Davis’ case.
“The Supreme Court felt is was as tested issue and sent it back to the state of Georgia,” said Shelton.
A source close to the Obama administration say that “since this is a state issue (he is not in federal prison) it is up to the state to make the final decision.” The same source said of President Barack Obama’s stance on the death penalty, he is generally against it except with the case of Osama bin Laden.
theGrio: How Obama can keep hope alive for Troy Davis
While running for the Oval Office, then-Senator Obama discussed how be brought people together to reform the troubled Illinois death penalty system. In his memoirs, Dreams of My Father, Obama called the death penalty “so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.”
On the GOP side, presidential front runner Rick Perry at a recent debate spoke with pride of his 234 death penalty executions. He said to applause that the state of Texas “has a very thoughtful and clear” plan. “When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens…if you do you will face the ultimate justice.”
In another issue linked to the pending Davis execution next week, Shelton said the Department of Justice is reviewing the Georgia lethal injection execution process after the rights group made the request. Shelton expressed concern that the lethal injection drug manufactured in France goes through a couple different stages to execute someone. Said Shelton, “it is a drug that is not supposed to be used on human beings. It is a drug that is supposed to be used when you put animals down.” The NAACP is also calling on the Justice department to review the drug that Shelton said could be deemed inhumane.
The Washington DC-based Death Penalty Information Center that of all the Americans sentenced to death, and then found to be innocent and then freed, African Americans made up 38 percent of the cases.
April Ryan is the White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks (AURN)
