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Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Capital Punishment in the News as Troy Davis, Richard "Ric Ric" Henyard Have Their Dates
Is Death and Not Justice Truly the Great Equalizer?
Richard "Ric Ric" Henyard, 34, To Die By Lethal Injection in FloridaRichard "Ric Ric" Henyard stood accused and was convicted of shooting two little girls to death as they called out to their mother, Dorothy Lewis. The seven and three year young babies never stood a chance in 1993. It is unlikely that his appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court will find a sympathetic ear.
Troy Davis, 39, To Die in Georgia
The Associated Press reports that the conviction for murder of Troy Davis has been called into question. Amidst recanted witness statements that claim him not to be the killer of the of a 27-year-young off-duty police officer, and those who question the validity of the new testimony, only the U.S. Supreme Court can delay the execution.
Capital Punishment and the Question of Race, Innocence, and Error
The Orlando Sentinel
reminds its readers that Sam Odom, the last Floridian to be on the
business end of the electric chair, was in fact unjustly executed.
While the paper most certainly does not assert Richard Henyard's
innocence of the crimes that earned his capital punishment sentence, it
does bring up the racial component and the changes that the
administration of capital punishment has undergone.
I grant you
that it makes little difference whether or not today we strive for the
most humane means of capital punishment possible; there are some crimes
so heinous that the perpetrators effectively have ripped up their
membership cards to the human race at large and society in particular. On the other hand, the simmering problems
with racism, erroneous identification, and blatant errors in
prosecution and defense put at risk those who may be innocent of crimes
to also be subject to the death penalty.
Perhaps this is why Al Sharpton is compelled to attend the Troy Davis vigils.
The Death Penalty Information Center
has a number of sobering statistics that give credence to those who
might be hesitant to apply capital punishment. It asserts that since
1973 there have been 130 people who have been released from death row
because new evidence exonerated them from the crimes they were convicted of committing.