one life

[UPDATE: emergency Supreme Court session did happen, and Davis received a stay an hour before his execution time. One life saved, for some block of time... and it only took 100K+ calls and faxes, protest marches on three continents, and personal appeals from Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, and the Pope......]

In a way, it's illogical to care as much as I do about whether or not the state of Georgia will kill Troy Davis tonight. One life in the sea of lives our government has ended. Why is Troy Davis more important than someone in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in a cell at Guantanamo? Well: he's symbolic. Our justice system killing him means something very different, for America in general, than our war machine killing one of the masses it dehumanized so effectively with "Axis of Evil" propaganda.

He's symbolic in that he hasn't received a retrial, or even a stay of execution, after his case has utterly fallen apart over the 17 years he's spent on death row. No physical evidence against him; seven of nine witnesses recanting and an eighth who didn't identify Davis until two years after the fact; proof of police fabricating witness statements (a "written statement" by a man who, it turns out, can't read or write); and physical evidence against the ninth "witness," who most of the other former witnesses say is the real killer.

Today, a last-minute flood of media attention... and a supposed emergency Supreme Court hearing, although I'm not hearing anything about it and it's after 5pm. So for the moment I'm just refreshing the CNN article, which seems to be most frequently updated. Which process is kind of gruesome in itself. The oddly voyeuristic detail. "NEW: Davis refuses his final meal." Updated 4:57pm. The meal consists of "macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, green beans, lettuce and tomato salad, corn bread, fruit cobbler and tea."