Davis and Brewer

In recent hours we have seen two executions in the United States. One caused outrage both within the nation and the world. The other did not receive anything near the same same amount of, shall we say, notoriety.

Troy Davis was executed in Georgia despite proclamations on his innocence by himself and his supporters. Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in Texas. Davis was accused of murdering an off duty police officer. Brewer was convicted of murdering a black man. The Davis case has people saying things such as the US system of justice is broken. No similar accusations about US justice seem to have appeared in Brewer's.

This is not to say that Davis may not have been innocent. That, whether we care to admit it or not, is more than we know, and it is fair to point out that twenty years of legal back and forth does seem plenty of time to secure his innocence. Say what you will, the general populace simply isn't necessarily privy to all the intimacies of such a case. Nor is it to support or deny the death penalty as a legitimate option when considering justice. But it is fascinating to note the differences in the approach to the respective cases here. With Davis, who, let's call it what it is, was wanted to be found innocent by the general public, there is hue and cry (which there should be, if he is truly innocent). With Brewer, there are details of the brutal murder he was convicted of committing right within the articles purporting to report only his execution.

The bottom line is that what we have here is a black man protesting innocence of a capital crime, and a white man convicted of killing a black man. In one case the death penalty is severely decried; in the other, not so much. It leaves us to wonder whether justice is really what the American public and the world wants, or if this merely illustrates an avant-garde, knee jerk reaction of a group of people whom it suits to have a cause celebre because it happens to fit their world view, their view of America.

The safest thing to do would be to get rid of capital punishment not because it is morally wrong but simply to prevent gross miscarriages of justice such as executing innocent men and women. We're just not convinced that that is the real purpose of all those who are against capital punishment. The contrasts between the Davis and Brewer cases seem to illustrate that point rather well.