The State of Georgia executed Troy Davis on
September 21, 2011. The method of death was injection with lethal dosages of chemicals. His last words protested his innocence.
“I’m not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother.”
Davis paid the ultimate price for the death of an off-duty policeman at a Savannah Burger King in 1989. The officer had attempted to interfere with the pistol-whipping of a homeless man over a bottle of beer. Troy Davis was accused of this crime and the state court ignored various statutes to attain the death penalty. Witnesses testified about a black man in a white shirt. Bullet casings were matched to another shooting and the jury took two hours to deliberate over the evidence before finding Troy Davis guilty of murder.
Years of legal struggles delayed the execution, but the last appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court fell on deaf ears and the warden green-lighted the death process. There is a good chance that this was another execution of an innocent man. The State of Georgia preferred to reject any doubt with the certainty of an eye for an eye even if the eye belonged to someone else.
One dead black man is as good as another.
North or South.
America the Land of the Free.