Lives In the Balance

The world is an emptier place today.

Some might say it is better.

Many feel it is worse.

But two men.

Convicted of two heinous crimes.

Are gone.

Forever.

By lethal injection, four hours apart.

In two different states.

Two different states of mind.

Two very different circumstances. 

I’m guessing Lawrence Brewer and Troy Davis never met.

Just a guess.

But their tombstones will both end with the same date.


September 21, 2011.

Cause of death -- execution.

Now before you think I am against the death penalty.

I am not.

Far from it.

As long as we know the truth.

The whole truth.

And nothing but the truth.

I say, let ‘em fry.

Enter the case of Lawrence Russell Brewer.

Convicted in 1999 for the brutal killing of James Byrd.

Brewer and two others were found guilty of dragging Byrd to his death at 2:30am on June 7, 1998.

They chained Byrd by his ankles to their pickup truck.

And drove for three miles.

Investigators had to identify Byrd’s body from fingerprints.

Fingerprints they took from a headless body.

Oh and one other thing.

Byrd was black.

The three guilty men were white.

As white as a white sheet.

Unfortunately you can probably find someone in this country who will miss Brewer.

But it won’t be me.

As for Davis.

His case was not nearly as cut and dry.

But many people are praising his execution.

And for good reason.

They believe he is guilty of killing an off-duty police officer in Georgia.

22 years ago.

Just like the jury believed it.

Two years later.

A jury described like a game of checkers.

Seven blacks, five whites.

That jury came to its conclusion after just two hours of deliberation.

They had clearly seen enough.

During the trial, several witnesses testified that they personally saw Davis commit the crime.

But the murder weapon was never discovered.

And no DNA was ever linked to the accused.

But the end of the trial turned out to be just the beginning of this story.

Seven of the nine “eyewitnesses” have since recanted all or part of their testimony.

Some of those witnesses said they were pressured by the police to point the finger at Davis.

If this is starting to sound like a Bob Dylan song.

It should.

This is the story of the Hurricane.

The one the authorities came to blame.

For something that he never done.

How can the life of such a man

Be in the palm of some fool's hand?

To see him obviously framed

Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land 

Where justice is a game.

I am certainly not qualified to say that Davis never did it.

Nor am I educated enough on this case to say that he did.

But fortunately I can read wikipedia.

And there I found that Davis was scheduled to be executed in July 2007.

And September 2008.

And October 2008.

But each time, his execution was stayed “shortly before it was to take place.”

Clearly somebody saw something that didn’t make sense.

And it clearly didn’t make sense to a lot of people.

Like former President Jimmy Carter.

"Executing Troy Davis without a real examination of potentially exonerating evidence risks taking the life of an innocent man and would be a grave miscarriage of justice."

But despite the public outcry, Davis was put to death on Wednesday night.

"To those who are about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls.  May God bless your souls."

Those his final words.

The final words of a man who shall forever be tied to the unknown.

A very different message than that heard from Brewer during one of his final public statements.

“As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets.  No, I’d do it all over again, to tell you the truth.”

The truth.

Perhaps the truth shall set him free.

But in the case of Davis, we may never know the truth.

We just know that his case is now closed.

In the end, I’m not sure if I fear for what we do know.

Or fear more for what we don’t.

Breaking the News

There’s a reason why the late Walter Cronkite is a legend.

Well there’s a lot of reasons.

But perhaps the main reason is for like 120 years, he was the only game in town.

Ok, there were three games.

NBC, ABC and Cronkite’s CBS.

But back in the day if you wanted the news, Walter was it.

Only you had to wait until 6:30pm.

5:30 Central.

That’s the way it was.

None of this round-the-clock, graphic-on-top-of-graphic breaking news.

Just the news.

Real news.

Now I watch as much TV as the next guy.

And when it comes to the news these days.

I love the live police car chase.

And the up-to-the-second trips to the weather center.

And those real-time sports scores.

Forget about it.

I’ve never really been a newspaper fanatic.

Unless it came to sports.

Funny story.

I was in my early teens.

We had a visitor staying at the house.

I asked if he wanted to see the morning paper.

When he said yes, I brought him the sports section.

I was shocked -- if not appalled -- when he asked where the rest of the paper was.

"What else is there?, " I thought.

To myself.

Back then, nothing was better than getting your hands black and messy from the ink of the box scores.

Of course the internet has changed all that.

For the better.

Anything you want.

Up-to-the-millisecond.

With a few clicks.

Ichiro career at bats as a pinch-hitter?

11.

Hits.

1.

Tom Brady wins in the snow, ice or below-freezing temps?

18.

Losses.

2.

LeBron James NBA Championships?

Zero.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

I didn’t need the internet for that.

But I do use the web for my news.

And these days, there’s one place I always start.

twitter.

It’s amazing what you can learn in 140 characters.

Or less.

Thanks to twitter I found out about the big east coast earthquake within seconds after it happened.

There were like a billion tweets before the world stopped shaking.

Ok, most of them were jokes.

And many of them were funny.

But I didn’t need Wolf Blitzer to tell me what was going on.

I just needed my iPhone.

Just today I was thumbing through my twitter app.

When I saw a tweet from @Denise_Richards.

She’s the one who escaped from Charlie Sheen Island.

I follow her.

With 2.1 million others.

Her tweet said:

EXTREMELY URGENT: #IN Shelter closing, all animals not adopted by 9/30 to be killed; pls RT http://hspcanimals.org/

Now I love dogs.

We have two.

And its a good thing we don’t live in Indiana.

Or we might now have three.

Or four.

But thankfully the word spread so quickly.

Within two hours all the animals were gone.

In the good way.

The thing about twitter is you can’t blink for a second or you might miss something important.

Like some @perezhilton gossip.

Or a restaurant update from @KevinsBBQJoints.

Or a great one liner from @DannyZuker.

Or something REALLY important from @ChristineCSE.

She, a self-proclaimed...

“bleeding heart liberal and sacred cow tipper who loves her leopard kitteh and wasted oodles of time engaging in economic wonkery.”

I’m one of her 79 followers.

Just an hour after Denise saved an animal shelter, Christine went on a quest of her own.

Tweeps - please write the GA Pardons & Paroles Board, tell them there is #toomuchdoubt to execute Troy Davis next week http://bit.ly/nkRC5R

I must admit when I read this I had never heard of Troy Davis.

Or this case.

But I have now.

Long story short.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing an off-duty police officer two years earlier.

He is scheduled to be executed in Georgia next Wednesday.

However.

Seven of the nine original witnesses have since recanted their statements.

And.

There has never been DNA evidence linking Davis to the crime.

And.

The murder weapon was never recovered. 

Hmmmmmm.

Davis’ execution has been postponed three times before.

The appeals have gone as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former President Jimmy Carter has spoken out against the execution.

So has Pope Benedict XVI, SVU.

Now I certainly have no idea if Troy Davis committed this crime.

And based on what I’ve read the last few hours, I’m not sure if anyone does.

I’m guessing if Walter Cronkite was still doing the news.

He would’ve covered this story.

At 6:30pm.

But thanks to twitter -- and @ChristineCSE -- I was able to learn about this story.

Maybe before its too late.