A Tale of Two Executions

So Troy Davis, convicted cop-killer, has gone on to answer to the highest tribunal, to the accompaniment of an outcry from a bevy of activists, secular, like Al Sharpton and Jimmy Carter, religious, like Pope Benedict and Desmond Tutu, and international, like France and Germany.

Of course, National People's Public Radio and the mainstream media were firmly in the corner of the cop-killer, consistently implying or declaring that Davis' conviction rested on only eyewitness testimony, a blatant lie, since in addition to nine eyewitnesses pegging him as the shooter, the evidence further proved that after the killing Davis changed his shirt and fled to Atlanta. The night prior to killing Officer McPhail, Davis shot a man at a party, wounding him in the jaw. Bullet casings from both shootings were recovered and were found to have been fired by the same gun. Davis himself admitted being present at the scene, while denying shooting McPhail. He claimed at trial that the witnesses were lying about his involvement, the same claim he is still making years later, a claim rejected by the jury and every court which has considered it.

Nevertheless, the usual media/left/religious apparatus is in full swing attacking the jury's verdict and the entire process of exhaustive legal review that has found no reason to disturb the verdict.

Ironically, while undergoing their orgy or self-congratulatory selective moral outrage, white supremacist Lawrence Brewer was also executed Wednesday in Texas for the horrific racially-motivated dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. Brewer's execution was carried out without letters of protest from the Vatican, without NPR hand-wringing, without an Al Sharpton appearance. In fact, even the local anti-capital punishment outfit in Texas couldn't gin up much interest in Brewer's dire plight. Explaining why their group had not focused attention on Brewer's execution,

Kristin Hule, president of the Texas Coalition to End the Death Penalty, said that while her group's members "unconditionally oppose all executions," her Austin-based organization must "as a matter of resources and capacity focus on the case that's right in front of us," referring to two cases with execution dates before Brewer's.
Added the group's founder, David Atwood of Houston, "I think Brewer's case is a little under the radar screen. I don't think many people, the attorneys, did anything. A lot of people haven't realized who Lawrence Brewer is."

And so it goes: certain murderers get poster-child status and are feted by foreign governments, by the media, and by some religious figures, as martyrs to the merciless machinery of a vindictive government.

Others, like the vile racist Brewer, whose cases aren't so appealing to the left, die without a whimper on their behalf from the multitudes who would make a martyr of Troy Davis.

Mind you, I have no more sympathy for Brewer than I do for Davis. My point is, when the crime is viewed as outrageous enough, when the narrative of a case doesn't fit the left's playbook, in other words, when they see it as carrying out their view of justice, even the left doesn't really oppose capital punishment.

They just want to be able to pick out who the state should execute.