The twenty-year battle to confirm the guilt or innocence of former Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis in the case of slain Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail ended with Davis’s execution September 21, 2011. That death sentence has served to galvanize debates over capital punishment and the role that race plays in the American judicial system to a degree no other case has in recent history.
Many have attributed the recent decision of Philadelphia’s district attorney Seth William’s office to end its thirty-year mission to execute former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, to concerns generated by Davis’s case. Speaking with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman on a segment of Democracy Now, NAACP president Benjamin Jealous noted the following:
“This is confirmation that the Troy Davis case is having an effect. The reality is that the court of public opinion is very closely tied to the court of law in these cases. And I think that the fact that Seth Williams felt, the DA in Philly felt, emboldened to come forward and to ask for something that was so reasonable and so just, in a city with such a conservative law enforcement history, really is testament to the fact that public support for the death penalty has fallen to an all-time low since it was reinstated, in the wake of Troy Davis’s execution.”
Fighting Together and Dying Together
The legal twists and emotional turns involving Davis’s case have been many, both in terms of courtroom developments and in terms of family members related to both the Davis family and the MacPhail family. In the case of the Davises, the executed prisoner’s mother, Virginia Davis, died on April 12, 2011, just five months before him. And on December 1, 2011, his sister Martina Davis-Correia, a military veteran universally acknowledged as her brother’s greatest advocate, died after a decade-long battle with cancer.
In one of her final interviews, again with Goodman, Davis-Correia shared this:
“I know my brother is happy because he’s laying to rest with my mother. And they’re probably looking down on us, asking us what our next move is, but I think he already knows, because this weekend has been such a powerful weekend, to see so many people come together and want to stand and fight and want to change the laws.”
Should Troy Anthony Davis be Dead?
Given the lack of physical evidence tying Davis to MacPhail’s murder, the recanted testimonies of seven out of nine witnesses, and the possibility of one day determining the case with some certainty if DNA testing might ever be used in it, many assumed Davis’s case would end in clemency rather than death. When he was in fact executed, headlines around the world expressed doubt that justice had been served. CBS Pittsburg News asked in bold letters, “Did Georgia Execute an Innocent Man?” And the San Francisco Bay View stated bluntly: “Troy Anthony Davis should not be dead.”
Davis’s supporters remained with him, in crowds gathered outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia, where he was executed, right up until the last moment. With virtually his last breath, he maintained his innocence, forgave his accusers, and urged supporters to “Continue to fight this fight.”
The battle has indeed continued. At least one book regarding Troy Anthony Davis, by filmmaker and author Jen Marlowe, who reportedly worked on it with Martina Davis-Correia, is currently in progress. As far-reaching and pivotal as the case continues to be, it more than likely shall become the subject of many more.
NEXT: Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No. 7 and Still Women Rise
by Aberjhani, National African American Art Examiner
author of Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World
and co-author of ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love
Pages from One Author's 2011 Journal
- Introduction to Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011
- Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No.10 Samuel L. Jackson’s $7 Billion Triumph
- Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No. 9 Belafonte’s New Song
- Looking at the World Through Michael Jackson’s Left Eye
- The Approaching 100thAnniversary of the Harlem Renaissance
- What Osama Bin Laden’s Death Indicates about Barack Obama’s Leadership
- Literary Legacies of Savannah Georgia
- Events, Book Highlight Flannery O’Connor Legacy
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