"Our Justice System at Its Worst": Date Set for Troy Davis Execution

"Our Justice System at Its Worst": DateSet for Troy Davis Execution by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan ( #TooMuchDoubt)
This week, Georgia announcedits plans to carry out the execution of Troy Davis. While there remains time tothwart this miscarrying of justice, the planned execution should give pause tous all.
In absence of forensicevidence or a murder weapon, an all-white jury convicted Davis of the 1989murder of a police officer in Savannah. The basis of the conviction was the witness testimony of nine individuals(7 eyewitnesses and 2 "jailhouse snitches"), many of who have subsequentlyspoken about police pressure.  Infact, since his conviction, all but two of the prosecution's non-policewitnesses have recanted or contradicted their own testimonies, leaving theconviction in doubt.  At the sametime, 9 individuals have signed affidavits implicating another individual who happensto be one of the two witnesses who have not reversed on originaltestimony.  Notwithstanding thesesignificant doubts raised during the appeals process, one that has neverallowed for his defense team to fully explore the recanting witness testimony,Davis' conviction has remained, resulting in the issuing of his death warrant yesterday.  
As part of its announcedplan to stop the execution of Davis, the NAACP described the injustice in thefollowing way: "This is our justice system at its very worst, and we are aliveto witness it. There is just too much doubt."  Callingfor people to take action to save Troy Davis' life, his case points tolarger racial issues that demand action as well.
His conviction and thedecision to proceed with his execution should give pause given the research onrace and witness identification. According to the Innocence Project, 75% of wrongful convictionsoverturned by DNA were the result of witness misidentification.  "While eyewitness testimony can bepersuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social scienceresearch has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable" reportsthe InnocenceProject. "Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder;we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tapethat has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at acrime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or itcan be contaminated." 
One of the sources ofcontamination is clearly race and the myriad of assumptions that result from aninstitutionalized system of stereotyping.   In "Cross-Racial Identification Errors in CriminalCases," Sheri Lynn Johnson highlights the unreliable nature of  "eye-witness" testimony, a fact that isexacerbated in cross-racial situations. Evidence from actual cases and in research studies elucidate the ways inwhich race and the larger social meanings attached to blackness play asignificant role within the process of witness identification.  In a study conducted with whitestudents at University of Illinois and black students at Howard University,researchers showed them pictures of 10 white and 10 black individuals for asecond and half; then, they were are asked to recall the pictures from a seriesof other photos.  According toElizabeth F. Loftus, in EyewitnessTestimony:
[T] he subjects were clearly better able to identifymembers of their own race. This study was later duplicated with the addition ofAsian students. Again [African Americans] had greater difficulty recognizingfaces of whites and Asians. Interestingly, however, whites and Asians hadrelatively little problem in identifying members of each other's race – thoughboth had trouble identifying [African Americans]. ( from review of book )
The psychological obstaclesfacing witnesses along with the ways in which race further complicates theprocess is well documented.  Yet,we continue to rely on witness testimony within the criminal justicesystem.  The power of the whiteracial frame illustrates the reasonable doubt inherent in eyewitnesstestimony.  In a society whereblack is akin to criminal, so much so that within the dominant imaginationthere exist a distinct category, the "criminalblackman" (Russell, 1998, p. 3), itis crucial to reflect on what is at stake with Troy Davis: his life and so manyothers.
The planned execution ofTroy Davis also points to a larger question of the racial application of thedeath penalty within the United States.  Accordingto David Dow, 35 years into the return of the death penalty "It remains asracist and as random as ever."  Referencingthe often-cited Baldus Study, which "found that black defendants were 1.7 timesmore likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and thatmurderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to deaththan those who killed blacks," Dow highlights the racist application of thedeath penalty.  Cases involving analleged black perpetrator and a white victim are far more likely to result inthe death penalty.  Although, "nationwide,blacks and whites are victims of homicide in roughly equal numbers . . . 80percent of those executed had murdered white people."  
The issues evident herepoint to the ways in which race impacts the death penalty at every level of theprocess.  For example, prosecutors"used peremptory strikes to remove 80%" of qualified African American jurors"in death penalty cases in Houston County, Alabama from 2005 to 2009.  In this jurisdiction, over half of alljuries were all-white with the rest having a lone African American member eventhough the the county was 27% of African American. 
Likewise, AngelaJ. Davis notes that "of 381 defendants" whose murder charges were dismissed"because prosecutors either concealed exculpatory information or presentedfalse evidence…67 had been sentenced to death." These studies, along withBaldus, all point to the ways in which race and racism operates within the JimCrow application of the death penalty, further demonstrating the issues atstake with Troy Davis.
In 2010, DaveZirin and Etan Thomas highlighted the Davis case, reminding readers, "Wecannot give up on Troy Davis. Every life is precious. He has already been incarceratedsince 1991 – we think it's past time that justice finally prevails."  Given the announcement of the impendingexecution, the importance of not giving up on Troy Davis and justice are thatmuch more important.  Thecircumstances for Davis and our entire criminal "justice" system are dire. Dowe really need more evidence about everything that is wrong with the deathpenalty?  One more mistake?  One more lost life?  As a precious life is in jeopardy, letour voices be heard!
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David J. Leonard isAssociate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and RaceStudies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, videogames, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academicmediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examiningthe interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representationsthrough contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary AfricanAmerican Cinema and the forthcoming AfterArtest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regularcontributor to NewBlackMan andblogs @ No Tsuris.