COLUMN: Troy Davis’ execution proved problems with justice system

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Late Wednesday night, Troy Davis was executed for the 1989 murder of off-duty policeman Mark MacPhail.

Davis allegedly shot MacPhail when the officer tried to intervene in an assault on a homeless man. He was convicted in 1991 and sentenced to death.

Since then, Davis maintained his innocence and went through several appeals attempting to get his conviction overturned. Seven of the original 34 prosecution witnesses have since changed or recanted their testimonies, many of who said they are no longer confident they properly identified the shooter. Others said police officers coerced them into implicating Davis.

Three witnesses also signed affidavits saying Redd Coles, originally a witness for the prosecution, had confessed to them he killed MacPhail.

In a 2010 court hearing, a district court heard the new evidence, but rejected many of the recantations as not credible, saying, “(W)hile Mr. Davis’s new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors.”

Davis went on to lose several more appeals and was executed this week. Through his appeals, Davis gained the support of various high-profile figures such as former President Jimmy Carter, Reverend Al Sharpton, Pope Benedict XVI, former Presidential candidate Bob Barr and former FBI Director William Sessions.

Davis easily could have been spared the death penalty and remained in jail if the state of Georgia wished to do so. Executing him did nothing for the American legal system other than cast doubt on whether or not justice was served. Ordering a new trial would have done little more harm than cost a small amount of money to retry the case. That is a small price to pay when an innocent life is at stake.

Whether or not Davis was innocent or guilty will probably never be known, but when it comes to carrying out the death penalty, is the mere question of “innocent vs. guilty” really sufficient?

In today’s world of DNA evidence and other sophisticated technologies, it is time to change the standards for when the death penalty is carried out.

However, we must be careful to not allow criminals to game the system and prolong their convictions in clear-cut cases. A good place to start reforms is requiring DNA evidence for the death penalty to be carried out.

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, DNA evidence has exonerated over 100 people. That is too many mistakes in our justice system to simply accept the status quo.

It is time to fix the system.