I asked this question as I observed the views expressed by black people the world over in the final 24 hours leading up to the execution of Troy Davis. I’ve read too many articles about this case, almost all of which were drenched in bias either for or against the stance taken by the state since the arrest of Troy Davis. As a law student, this case really hit home because it brought to the forefront a very controversial issue within law: the death penalty- yay or nay? I will not pretend to truly have set position in regards to this issue. I have, in the past, said that I am all for it but then I had certain conditions that had to be fulfilled before that would be “okay”.
I recall having serious debates with colleagues of mine about this issue. We, of course, looked at cases like Pratt V Morgan and Attorney General V Joseph and Boyce where the major concerns of “cruel and inhumane treatment” and the right to appeal came up. The guidelines adopted by courts under the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was garnered from the cases of Pratt V Morgan and the resulting principle was that anyone convicted of murder and sentenced to the death penalty had the right to exhaust all appeal options through all courts in the hierarchy in an effort to have their sentenced commuted to life imprisonment. I will refrain from giving details in these cases because it is not a lecture and I am mindful of the fact that non-law student readers are present.
All the same, I bring these cases up to say that my opinion on the Troy Davis case was formulated bearing the justice system of my country and region in mind. That should have been the first red flag for me because a major difference to note is that Troy Davis was tried under the justice system of the United States of America. Their laws and methods of carrying out justice are quite different. Their justice system is based on federal and statutory laws. In the Caribbean region and the United Kingdom, the justice system is based on common law as well as statutory laws. Statutory means official documentation of laws on the books for our states. Each country is a state. So basically, the way they do things and the way we do things are different.
Cruel and inhumane treatment was thought to be what a man experiences when he is on death row for a certain amount of time. The traumatic psychological effects that a man would experience with each passing day- the uncertainty of when your number would be called, getting nervous and fearful each time the guard walked toward your cell- was thought to be too much for any man to be put through, horrendous crime committed aside. As such, based on the fact that it is a breach of a constitutional right to be surrendered to this kind of treatment, it was then established that any man who was on death row for more than five (5) years (3.5 if no resort was made to human rights bodies) would have his sentence automatically commuted.
As I said before, our justice system is based on common law (based on decisions of cases that have set precedence rather than statutes) and operates differently than that of the American system. They have no such rule or principle to follow that is akin to the Pratt V Morgan principle. There have been many theories about the decisions being due to the fact that Troy was a black man and that the state in which he was tried was one of the most racist in the country. How much of that is true, we won’t ever really know. What we do know is that some sort of injustice was served and that the facts do not add up.
There was just too much doubt.
