Reading: by Steven Stewart, Prosecuting Attorney of Clark County, from the website of the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Indiana
Along with two-thirds of the American public, I believe in capital punishment. I believe that there are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present. I believe life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again. In my view, society has not only the right, but the duty to act in self defense to protect the innocent.
Reading: by the anti-racism activist Tim Wise from a piece entitled “Killing One Monster, Unleashing Another: Reflections on Revenge and Revelry” (May 2, 2011)
There is a particularly trenchant scene in the documentary film, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, in which Blecker — who teaches at New York Law School and is the nation’s most prominent pro-death penalty scholar — travels to Tennessee’s Riverbend Prison for the execution of convicted murderer, Daryl Holton. Blecker is adamant that Holton, who murdered his own children, deserves to die for his crime. Yet, when he gets to the prison on the evening of Holton’s electrocution, Blecker is disturbed not only by the anti-death penalty forces whom he views as dangerously naive, but also by those who have come to literally cheer the state-sponsored killing. He agrees with their ultimate position, but can’t understand why they feel the need to celebrate death, to party as a life is taken. The event is somber, he tries to tell them. Human life is precious, he insists; so precious, in Blecker’s mind, that occasionally we must take the lives of killers so as to reinforce that respect for human life. But there is no reason to revel in the death of another, he tries to explain. While I disagree with Blecker on the matter of the death penalty, I felt sympathy for him in that moment, trying to thread the needle between advocacy of killing — any killing — and the retention of the nuance that allows the supporter of such a thing to still preach about the sanctity of life. It was a nice attempt, and heartfelt.
Of course, his pleas for solemnity fall on deaf ears.
Reading: a prayer attributed to the twelfth century Christian Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals
Where hate rules, let us bring love; where sorrow, joy.
Let us strive more to comfort others than to be comforted,
To understand others, than to be understood,
To love others more than to be loved.
For it is in giving that we receive,
And in pardoning that we are pardoned.
Remembering Troy Davis
A Sermon Delivered on October 23, 2011
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
On a hot summer night twenty-two years ago, August 19, 1989, in Savannah, Georgia, Mark MacPhail was killed.
Late that night a neighborhood bully named Sylvester Coles was harassing a homeless man, named Larry Young. Young had a can of beer in a paper bag, and Coles wanted to have it.
It turned into a fight, as Coles followed Young up the street, and it got loud. A crowd of bystanders started to gather, some of them pouring out of a nearby pool hall when they heard the ruckus.
But Coles did not relent. He loudly threatened Young. Then Coles pulled a gun out of his pocket, and began hitting Young on the head. Fearing for his life, Young shouted someone should call the police.
Mark MacPhail was a police officer, off-duty that evening and nearby. He heard the cries and approached the scene hoping to help. MacPhail was shot twice and died. Mark MacPhail was twenty-seven years old and father of two young children.
That August in 1989, nine witnesses went on record saying twenty-year-old Troy Davis was the one who shot the gun and killed MacPhail. Sylvester Coles was one of the witnesses. A day after the killing, with a lawyer at his side, Coles identified Davis as the gunman.
A few days later Troy Davis heard the police were looking for him, so he turned himself in. He figured this was a simple case of mistaken identity, that would be cleared up quickly. Instead he was arrested, charged with the murder, and two years later convicted of the crime. And sentenced to death.
Twenty-two years after the killing of Mark MacPhail, on September 21, 2011, Troy Davis was executed by lethal injection and justice was served.
Justice, as understood by the Supreme Court of the United States, as understood by countless district attorneys like Steven Stewart, who believe that society has a duty to kill a killer. Justice, as understood by over 60% percent of U.S. citizens, who support capital punishment.
* * *
If you kill, you deserve to be killed. This is the simple logic of the death penalty. If you commit the ultimate crime, you deserve the ultimate punishment.
But I wonder, if it is wrong to kill, if murder is a profound injustice, then how can another act of killing be justice? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
“Thou shalt not kill.” This commandment sounds straightforward. Nevertheless we have always found ways to bend this rule.
* * *
The justification for capital punishment has a long legal history. It also has a long religious history. For several centuries now, the religious philosophy of Thomas Aquinas has provided a theological justification for the death penalty.
In the thirteenth century Aquinas argued, civil rulers may “justly and sinlessly” execute evil men, “in order to protect the state.”
Thomas Aquinas taught that, when lawful authority kills an evildoer, Christ’s command to love is not broken, because “by sinning man departs from the order of reason, and therefore falls from dignity... and falls somehow into the slavery of the beasts… Therefore,” Aquinas writes, “although it be evil in itself to kill a man who preserves his human dignity, nevertheless to kill a man who is a sinner can be good, just as it can be good to kill a beast.”
Christianity, at its best, teaches that love conquers all. God is love. And God’s justice is guided by love. Likewise we must learn to love our neighbors as ourselves.
But, according to Aquinas, evildoers have forfeited the right to be considered our neighbors. Evil people, he says, can hardly be considered human.
For centuries these religious ideas have informed our notions of justice and guided our legal practice. But over the centuries, our understanding of justice has changed. Other religious ideas have been lifted up. For instance, the ancient teaching that we are all God’s children, provided inspiration for the political ideals of equality and democracy, which were central in the founding of this nation. These ideas found expression after World War II in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in our own affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
Today capital punishment is being outlawed by an ever-growing number of nations. According to Amnesty International “more than two thirds of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.”
They all agree that it is wrong to kill a killer. They agree, two wrongs don’t make a right.
And in the 1990s the Catholic Church revised its teachings on capital punishment. Today the Catholic Catechism says the death penalty is never justified.
Today all Western democracies have banned capital punishment - all Western democracies with one notable exception: the United States of America.
* * *
Just as the religious justification for capital punishment has a long history, opposition to the death penalty has a long history, as well.
Even in the 14th century, Aquinas’ position was not universally shared. An alternate argument was offered by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, a century before Aquinas. Maimonides understood that the practice of execution would inevitably lead down a slippery slope of ever diminishing burdens of proof. Maimonides wrote, “It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death.” To some degree the act of killing would be determined by a “judge’s caprice.”
In 1994, the Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote, “the death penalty must be imposed fairly… or not at all, and, despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this daunting challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake.”
There is unavoidably a degree of capriciousness in our justice system. The judgments handed down invariably reflect the political sensibilities of a particular judge and jury, and the communities in which they live.
What does it mean that since the death penalty was reinstituted in this country in 1976, 80% of executions have been carried out in the South, and less than 2% in the Northeast?
What does it mean that the vast majority of death row inmates are men who couldn’t afford their own trial attorney?
Despite our best efforts, sometimes our legal system makes mistakes. Sometimes the accused receive an inadequate defense, sometimes testimony is perjured and sometimes eyewitnesses are mistaken. Sometime racial prejudice is involved. Sometimes evidence is suppressed, overlooked or misinterpreted.
* * *
Things would have turned out differently for Troy Davis, if he had been living in Illinois rather than Georgia.
Over a decade ago Gov. George Ryan put a moratorium on executions here, after over a dozen condemned men on death row were cleared of charges. Had the executions been scheduled earlier, these thirteen men, though ultimately declared innocent of their crimes, would have been killed by the state.
Earlier this year Gov. Quinn signed the bill into law, which officially brought an end to capital punishment in Illinois.
If he had lived in Illinois, Troy Davis would be alive today.
According to the New York Times, since the death penalty was reinstituted 35 years ago, 129 inmates on death row have been exonerated based on new evidence, including DNA.
* * *
On the night of August 19, 1989 in Savannah, Georgia, Troy Davis was one of the on-lookers who had come out of the pool hall when he heard the noise outside. He said, when he heard Coles threaten to shoot Young, he turned around and ran, and didn’t look back.
There was never any physical evidence linking Davis to the crime. The gun was never found.
Since being convicted of the murder, new evidence emerged that cast doubt upon the guilty verdict. After the trial, seven of the nine witnesses recanted. Six of them said the police threatened them if they didn’t identify Davis. And Coles himself later confessed to the crime. (Editorial, New York Times, Sept. 20, 2011)
In the course of the last twenty years, Davis’ execution was stayed three times. The fourth attempt to prevent the execution, just weeks ago, failed. Last month Amnesty International submitted more the 630,000 letters to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles asking for clemency. Petitioners included 51 members of congress, a former FBI director, a former president, and even the pope.
Troy Davis maintained his innocence throughout. Davis’ final words, before the lethal injection was administered, were recorded, and then transcribed. He said:
“Well, first of all I'd like to address the MacPhail family. I'd like to let you all know, despite the situation -- I know all of you are still convinced that I'm the person that killed your father, your son and your brother, but I am innocent. The incident that happened that night was not my fault. I did not have a gun that night. I did not shoot your family member. But I am so sorry for your loss. I really am -- sincerely. All I can ask is that each of you look deeper into this case, so that you really will finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends that you all continue to pray, that you all continue to forgive. Continue to fight this fight. For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on all of your souls. God bless you all.”
* * *
Two wrongs don’t make a right. It is a tragedy that Mark MacPhail was killed. It is a tragedy that Troy Davis was killed.
May their tragic death inspire us to do our part to bring an end to all killing, and create greater justice.
May we use our powers
to heal and not to harm,
to help and not to hinder,
to bless and not to curse,
and to serve in the spirit of love.
Amen.
