July 16, 2007
A Confederacy of Hypocrites -- Troy Anthony Davis: Dead Man Walking
By Jan Baumgartner, OpEdNews
(UPDATE: 8:00 p.m. EST Just minutes ago, the Georgia state parole board
issued a 90-day stay of execution for Troy Anthony Davis. )
Troy Anthony Davis, 38, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection
tomorrow, Tuesday, July 17, at 7:00 p.m. for the murder of Savannah, Georgia
police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail.
Lawyers, family members and a representative from Amnesty International, in
a last ditch effort to save Davis' life, today spent nearly five hours
pleading for clemency before the Georgia parole board.
Davis has been on death row for over 17 years. He has maintained his
innocence from the start. Seven of the nine witnesses who helped implicate
Davis in the murder of MacPhail have recanted their testimony. There is
evidence to corroborate that some of the witnesses had been intimidated or
coerced into fingering Davis as the shooter. No murder weapon was found.
And yet, a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death in 1991.
A few weeks ago, Libya sentenced six medics to death. In recent statements,
President George Bush made it clear to the Libyan government that he
believes that the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor found
guilty of deliberately infecting over 400 children with HIV tainted blood,
should be released.
The U.S. "strongly supports the release of the Bulgarian nurses in Libya,"
Bush said, adding that their release is a "high priority" for the United
States.
Bush's vehement response to the Libyan government is unwavering conviction
that he believes the lives of the six medics should be spared from a firing
squad, although they were sentenced in a court of law. Evidently, the lives
of 426 innocent children, knowingly infected with tainted blood carrying the
deadly HIV virus, was not a strong enough case to send these medics before a
firing squad.
As Bush is a man of God, and has been known to proselytize, his mission is
to spread peace and freedom around the globe.
For Bush and his clan, the sanctity of life is above all else. Even
embryonic stem cell research is not morally sound, as it is the taking of
precious life -- God-given life.
However, in the United States of America, or Confederacy of Hypocrites, the
life of Troy Anthony Davis, somehow, is not as precious or valuable as
embryonic stem cells or the six medical professionals who determined that
the lives of 426 children were expendable.
If the Georgia parole board refuses Mr. Davis' plea for clemency, denies
life to a man quite possibly innocent of the crime of which he was
convicted, he will be given a lethal injection at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow. The
clock is ticking.
He will will be strapped to a gurney, like a caught animal in a steel trap,
as a cold needle tears through his veins. Onlookers will witness the death
of a young man. They will witness the death of a son and a brother and a
friend. And more importantly, of a fellow human being who may or may not
have taken the life of officer Mark Allen MacPhail.
As Davis takes in his last breath at the hands of his executioners, Mr. Bush
will be protecting his precious embryonic stem cells in research labs across
the nation. He will continue to condemn Libya for their barbaric decision
to put to death medics who may have possibly killed over 400 orphaned
children. He will continue to send young American men and women into battle
for a war that had nothing to do with terrorism in the United States of
America. He will be responsible for the deaths of hundreds more, thousands
of innocent human beings.
Life is precious. Just ask Bush.
---
Source : OpEdNews (Authors Bio: A native Californian, Jan Baumgartner is a
freelance writer currently living in Maine. Her background includes
scriptwriting, comedy writing for the Northern California Emmy Awards, and
travel writing for The New York Times. She has worked as a grant writer for
the non-profit sector in the fields of academia, AIDS, and wildlife
conservation and research for NGO's in the U.S. and Kenya. Her articles and
essays have appeared in numerous online and print publications. Her travels
in Africa are the inspiration for much of her work. She's finishing a memoir
about her husband's death from ALS.
http://www.opednews
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