A grim duty

July 14, 2007

Georgia

A grim duty

Date nears for Troy Anthony Davis execution.

Savannah Morning News, Opinion | Editorial

EXECUTIONS ARE grim duties, including the one scheduled Tuesday for
convicted killer Troy Anthony Davis.

No one looks with enthusiasm on the state's responsibility to carry out this
ultimate punishment.

Even the family members of murder victims look on the death of the
perpetrator with a kind of satisfaction that brings closure but little
comfort.

But the law of the land states that those who take a life may be required to
pay with their own.

This fact is not hidden from those who live by violence. When a criminal in
Georgia decides to murder another human being, the risk of facing the death
penalty is evident.

In the case at hand, 12 jurors found Davis guilty of murdering off-duty
police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989.

At least four witnesses identified him as the gunman. Four witnesses
identified him as the man who struck another man in the head with a pistol -
an assault that Officer MacPhail tried to stop when he was murdered.

Eight courts rejected his appeals. And now, after nearly 16 years on death
row, Davis' reckoning is at hand.

While some may feel sympathy for the condemned man's family, that does not
negate a man's debt to justice.

On Tuesday evening, Davis will be required to pay that debt, ending a saga
that began on a springtime evening in 1989, when he made the fateful
decision to pull the trigger.

While some may feel sympathy for the condemned man's family, that does not
negate a man's debt to justice.

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Source : Savannah Morning News, Opinion | Editorial

http://www.savannahnow.com/node/324107