It Must Make Us Feel Better

Troy Davis was executed last night, after a last minute flurry of activity to spare his life by staying his execution. But, if Americans have shown anything, it is that they will not be denied their revenge. It's not as if Troy Davis did anything to us, personally. But, he was a convicted murderer, and, perhaps owing to our "wild west" mentality, those who kill must be killed. Never mind that, in the years since his conviction for the crime, seven of nine witnesses recanted their stories. It does not matter that physical evidence linking him to the crime was never discovered. It is not about guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, because there was certainly reasonable doubt in his case. I don't know if he committed the crime for which he was charged, or not. But I do know that there was enough doubt about his guilt that he never should have been executed. But, it does not matter in America, because we are a people who love to exact revenge. Look at the films that we view. Look at the violence in them, and the vicarious sense of sweet revenge we get from them when the bad guys get what they deserve. Have you ever noticed how many Christians are among those holding signs outside prisons whenever an execution is scheduled? One knows that they are Christians because they carry signs proclaiming that fact, they wear crosses, and they are happy to tell any who will listen that they are Christian. What is often missing from that tableau is a reporter who asks a Christian how he or she can mesh their belief in capital punishment with their Christian faith. One will always see signs reminding us of "an eye for an eye."  Again, why does no one ever ask about the rest of that verse, about how Jesus ended the thought. He said that we are to turn the other cheek, which is also greatly misunderstood, but that's for another day's blog entry. Recently, Ray Krone, a convicted murderer was on our campus. You may wonder how we were able to arrange for a convicted murderer to appear on our campus. Ray was convicted of raping and murdering a waitress and was sentenced to death and placed on Arizona's death row. Just as Troy Davis did, Ray protested his conviction and asserted his innocence. However, in Ray's case, annoying evidence of his innocence began to appear, and re-appear. No matter how loudly the prosecutor proclaimed Ray's guilt, the voices proclaiming his innocence would not be silenced. Finally, justice was won and Ray was released from prison after DNA evidence exonerated him. Troy Davis was willing to take a polygraph test yesterday, but he was not permitted to do so. There was no way that the state of Georgia was going to be denied its pound of flesh. Another execution was carried out in Texas last night, and still another is scheduled for tonight in Alabama. Americans love executions, they love wild-west justice, they love revenge. And, to this point in time, no state has agreed to allow the filming of an execution, and one has to wonder why. If state-sanctioned executions are such a great idea, would we not wish to show them off? One would think that politicians who run on a platform of getting tough on crime would want to show an execution so that folks know that they are serious. I am guessing that we will never see a televised execution, because it would reveal that the emperor has no clothes. If folks could see the cool and calculated premeditation that goes along with the process for themselves, they just might be horrified, having a difficult time differentiating what the convicted murderer did from that which the state did to the murderer. Troy Davis may have been innocent, but it does not mater now. Those calling for revenge still shout louder than those calling for justice. And those calling for revenge, in the name of God, remain deaf to their folly.