There should
be no statute of limitations, or deadlines without exceptions, when
it comes to proof of innocence. No one should be forced to stay in
prison or be executed, simply because the innocence issue wasn't
resolved in time. How ridiculous to suggest otherwise, especially
when we have a judicial system so broken that the rich guilty (and
sometimes even poor guilty) can often walk, while many innocent
people have been sent behind bars because they didn't have the means
to prove their innocence, or were afraid to take a chance on a trial
after being told they would face a harsher sentence, if they fought
the charges and didn't win. The latter should never be a part of a
system supposedly seeking "justice", but sadly it is.
I was reading,
"Fight
to keep Georgia man from death chamber not over", by Harry R.
Weber - Associated Press Writer, on Ledger-Enquier.com (July 22,
2007), which says, "Davis, 38, was convicted of killing Savannah
police Officer Mark MacPhail, who was shot twice after he rushed to
help a homeless man who had been assaulted. The 1989 shooting
happened in a Burger King parking lot next to a bus station where
MacPhail, 27, worked off-duty as a security guard. Davis' lawyers
say seven witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony
that they saw Davis shoot the officer, saw him assault the homeless
man or heard Davis confess to the slaying.
Three people
who did not testify at trial have said in affidavits that another
man, Sylvester Coles, confessed to killing the officer after Davis
was convicted. After the shooting, Coles identified Davis as the
killer."
Did Troy Davis
commit the crime? I don't know, but the article goes on to say,
"Prosecutors argue that most of the witness affidavits, signed
between 1996 and 2003, were included in Davis' previous appeals -
which were denied - and should not be considered new evidence." This
is where I get concerned. The appeals were denied? What does this
mean? Was it like in the Terri Schiavo case where the case itself
wasn't even considered because of jurisdiction issues, or because it
was felt it wasn't filed in a timely fashion or that it wasn't filed
properly, or because it was felt there was no error or some other
technicality that hadn't a single thing to do with the evidence that
might have proven him actually innocent or shown there was doubt?
Many have been
wrongly found guilty, gone to prison and lost appeal after appeal.
Many that are now grateful to Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who
founded the
Innocence
Project. A project through which they were proven innocent, as a
result of DNA testing that was not available (or used) during the
investigation and trial involving them. Obviously, there was a
problem with the system to have found the innocent guilty in the
first place. Obviously there is something wrong with the system that
kept rejecting appeals after the wrong was committed. Where was the
fail safe? Where is the fail safe? Why isn't the system working as
it is meant to?
Mike Nifong, a
prosecutor from North Carolina, showed us up close and personal why
some innocent people end up behind bars. He showed us that there are
prosecutors that decide the accused is guilty and ignore anything
that proves otherwise. The accused in the Duke lacrosse case happen
to be young men from well-to-do families. What might have happened
if they had been from the poor side of town? Would they have been
able to hold out long enough for the truth to come out, which proved
they had actually been proven innocent (by the evidence) soon after
the case got under-way?
Why is it that
when there is a challenge to a judge presiding over a case, that he
(or she) gets to decide whether or not he (or she) is bias or has a
conflict and whether or not he (she) will recluse self? Where is the
reasoning in this? Where is the safeguard? Personally, I see none.
Personally, I see this as one of the areas that has allowed judges
to rise to self-proclaimed god-dom, dooming the system's
effectiveness, and destroying what the judicial system is suppose to
stand for always -- truth and justice!
What happens
when a judge, even in innocent error, doesn't let in testimony, or a
piece of evidence, that would have proven the accused guilty or
innocent? Justice is not served and someone innocent pays the price
for this wrong.
I don't know
if Troy Davis is guilty or not. I don't know if he should be on
death row or a free man. What I do know is that our judicial system
has failed too often and needs to be revisited and repaired. It
needs to allow for proof of innocence to be admitted and applied
whenever the evidence is discovered and can be proven. There should
be no deadlines to be missed when it comes to innocence. There
should never be a time when it becomes "comfortable" to say, "I know
he is innocent, but he was found guilty by a jury, so he must be
executed regardless."
Innocence is
innocence no matter what faulty humans might have once thought or do
think. A court of law isn't ever going to change that fact. What it
must change is it's attitude and it's mission and come to have a
willingness to admit error when an error has been committed.
Mistakes are
going to happen no matter how hard those within the system work to
avoid them. However, with a system that is truly seeking "justice",
there should be no shame in admitting an honest error, nor in
working towards correcting it. Instead, there should be pride in
seeing the system, and the law, work towards the purpose it was
established for. A system that protects the innocent, while holding
not only the guilty accountable, but itself. After all, a system
lacking in accountability comes to be called tyranny. It always
does. And one thing about tyranny -- it really doesn't care much
about innocence especially when it is getting in the way!
Carrie Hutchens
is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is
active in fighting against the death culture movement and the
injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
