Execution

I see that the State of Georgia finally ended the life of Troy Davis for killing a police officer. Good for them. Troy was no angel and he was found guilty in a court of law on multiple occasions for killing that officer. His pleas finally ran out and the state of Georgia did what should not have taken twenty years.

I can say with some certainty that he's guilty. It's one thing to try your case in the court of public opinion, it's entirely another to try your case in a courtroom, with rules and cross-examinations, and discovery and all the other procedural matters that accompany a criminal prosecution. He was found guilty, not once, but several times. When all the appeals failed, they took the case to the public, which matters not one whit. Troy Davis was guilty and that's that.

Many death-penalty cases result in a miscarriage of justice. After long years of legal wrangling, the witnesses die, or the rules change, or the political will just gets tired of hearing about the case and the murderer is set free. I give you the case of Wilbert Rideau, a convicted killer who served time on death row in Louisiana. He murdered Julie Ferguson during a botched bank robbery. Julie's only crime was showing up for work that morning. Wilbert continued to throw up appeals, he continued to exploit the system, he continued to get new trials. Finally, they were able to find a jury who said that it really wasn't murder, it was manslaughter, and Wilbert was released from prison. He's never denied killing Ms. Ferguson. He's never denied bringing a kinfe and a gun into a bank with the intention of robbing that bank.

Wilbert Rideau is a free man, and Julie Ferguson molders in her grave. It's as if she never existed. But that's enough about Wilbert. The less said about him, the better.

Tony Davis wasn't a Saint. Quite the contrary, he was a murderer. The judge that heard the case believed that he was a murderer. Twelve people in the jury believed that he was a murderer.

While we're talking about executions and the hand-wringing of the execution of a cop killer, did anyone notice that Texas executed Lawrence Brewer? Yeah, Brewer was one of those convicted of killing a black man by dragging him behind a pickup truck in 1998. You don't hear much hand-wringing about a white man being executed for killing a black man, do you? No, only if a black man kills a white woman, or a black man kills a cop. Executing a white man just doesn't fit the narrative.

Do I feel bad about Texas executing Brewer? Hell, no. He was a murdering sonofabitch. But, I don't see a lot of outrage over the execution. It simply doesn't fit the narrative.