Wonderland or Not

While we’re on jus­tice let’s look at the case of Troy Davis, digres­sing slightly for a moment.

Nisha recently wrote about Iran’s exe­cu­tion of Delara Darabi, won­de­ring why there wasn’t more cove­rage of the case by mains­tream media. Darabi, a juve­nile when the crime was per­pe­tra­ted, having ori­gi­nally con­fes­sed to the crime, later recan­ted, saying she took the blame because her boy­friend said she couldn’t be pro­se­cu­ted as a juve­nile, was sec­retly exe­cu­ted with no noti­fi­ca­tion to her law­yers, and this after being given a two month stay of execution.

That Iran’s poli­cies are abho­rrent is not in doubt. That it would be great if mains­tream media cove­red sig­ni­fi­cant human rights vio­la­tions as vora­ciously as they cover cele­brity non news, there is no ques­tion, yet it’s dif­fi­cult to find enough outrage to lash out at at our media for not cove­ring Iran’s injus­ti­ces con­si­de­ring the poor job they do of cove­ring our own, unless of course they involve the mur­der of a blond college stu­dent or the like.

The root of the injus­tice may be dif­fe­rent, ours revol­ving around a sys­tem which favors Cau­ca­sians, or those of color with noto­riety and ample resour­ces to mount a decent defense, and Iran’s, currently revol­ving around Shi’a Isla­mic law, but since when does it mat­ter what spawns the injus­tice. Our injus­tice is not more just than theirs. There seems to be little media mar­ket for either. It would be nice to see an inc­rease in major media cove­rage of our own injus­ti­ces, des­pite the mar­ket. Should that ever hap­pen then they can tread into cove­rage of the injus­ti­ces in the rest of the world. Pos­sibly somewhere along the way they can make peo­ple care.

Until then it’s Indie media, as Nisha poin­ted out, and in some cases bloggers.

Let’s take Troy Davis for ins­tance. Troy Davis, a man pos­sibly wrongly accu­sed and con­vic­ted of mur­der and sche­du­led to death. Mr. Davis is on death row in Geor­gia, sche­du­led for exe­cu­tion, his appeals denied, his stay, given after the denial of his last appeal, runs out May 15th. This for a crime that all along he never con­fes­sed to, has ada­mantly denied taking part in. A crime for which most wit­nes­ses have recan­ted their tes­ti­mony, or admit­ted to being coer­ced into giving. A crime for which there is “no phy­si­cal evi­dence, no wea­pon, no motive, no anything”.

Troy Davis – Fina­lity Over Fairness

Talk Left has very little cove­rage of the case as of recently but I’m going to quote a com­ment from the last post I can find on it over there, the com­men­ter is “sef” and the com­ment mimics much of what I have read while inves­ti­ga­ting this over the last few hours.

The stay order is simply bri­lliant in that it is writ­ten in such dense lega­lese as baf­fle lay rea­ders and acces­si­ble enough for law­yers to know exactly what they are saying. Spe­ci­fi­cally, the panel’s order appears to read we think that Troy is likely inno­cent, we don’t want to live with the idea of exe­cu­ting a man who is more likely than not inno­cent, howe­ver, we also believe AEDPA doesn’t per­mit us to give him a new trial on his inno­cence claims.

Troy Davis’ stay of exe­cu­tion is set to expire on May 15. On May 19, groups and indi­vi­duals all around the world will be orga­ni­zing demons­tra­tions, vigils, teach-ins or other public events to show the state of Geor­gia that the exe­cu­tion of Troy Davis would be an unac­cep­ta­ble tra­vesty of jus­tice. We need you to be as visi­ble and as loud as possible!

For more infor­ma­tion SJP): SJP is spearhea­ding some blog­ger action regar­ding Troy Davis.

The links below are cour­tesy of SJP:

Fact sheet on Davis’ case

Inno­cence on Georgia’s Death Row

Where is the jus­tice for me?

Lis­ten to Troy tell his story

Join the discussion

Hear from Troy’s sister

Troy Davis’ website

Shout out to a Kevin from A Slant Truth.