Tonight, two different men are going to be murdered. One will be murdered in Texas, the other in Georgia. One did the crime, said he did it, said he'd do it again if he had the chance, the other one was convicted without any physical evidence whatsoever, no murder weapon, no DNA, just nine eye-witness statements, of which seven have been either fully or partially recanted.
As an admitted screaming-pinko-liberal this should place me in quite the quandry. Liberals, almost by definition, should be against the death penalty in both cases, regardless of the nature of the crime. Well, not this Liberal.
In the case of the vicious animal being put down in Texas tonight (the one and only time I am EVER likely to agree with anything pRick Perry does) there is no doubt as to his guilt. He, and a bunch of his racist pals chained a black man (James Byrd) to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged him to death. The coroner has surmised that Byrd was alive for a good portion of the event, including when various limbs were torn from his body, and only died after he was decapitated. This happened in this country, in this century. I not only think this piece of filth should be executed, I think it should be televised so that all of his white supremacist buddies can see what justice looks like.
In the Troy Davis case in Georgia, we have the opposite scenario. A man that has protested his innocence from the very beginning was convicted as I said above, with the most marginal of cases presented against him. Seven of the nine eye-witnesses have now backed away from their original stories, and there is no physical evidence that links him to the crime, but the state will murder him tonight anyway. And in case you think this is just some sort of "let's take pity on the poor black man" cause celebre bullshit, know this; one of the most important opponents to this execution is the former director of the FBI, William Sessions, a person not best known for his "liberal" views. None of this reasonable doubt matters to the Georgia Pardons board though, who yesterday basically said 'tough shit' and denied a last-minute appeal for clemency.
So what happens tonight? Well, barring any last minute reprieves, the state of Georgia will murder a man that could very well be 100% innocent, and the state of texas will murder a man that is 100% guilty.
And this particular Liberal thinks that is wrong. And right.
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