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In the brutal arbitrariness that is any system conducted by humans rather than computers, Troy Anthony Davis was executed in Georgia last night while Casey Anthony is free.
Many, especially on Twitter, have noted the racial element of the disparate outcomes. Said one person: "Remember when people said if Casey Anthony was black...well, there we have it. Round of applause for living in a racist, ignorant world."
Another person: "At least Casey Anthony is still alive, safe and warm and probably still white and cute." And another: "If the death penalty has taught us anything today, it's that Casey Anthony should've been black."
Davis was executed with, reportedly, no physical evidence tying him to the fatal shooting of a police officer.
Yet it is the lack of physical evidence that resulted in acquittals for two other high profile cases: that of Casey Anthony, accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter, Caylee; and that of two white New York City police officers accused of raping a woman they had escorted home after she had too much to drink.
Meanwhile, there was reportedly plenty of physical evidence tying to Dominique Strauss-Kahn to the sexual assault of a Guinean hotel housekeeper, but prosecutors dropped charges after they discovered the maid has "inconsistent stories" and had lied on her asylum application. Strauss-Kahn has admitted only to a sexual encounter and a "moral failing."
Of course, there have been other high profile acquittals despite what seems overwhelming physical evidence: That of the police officers in both the Amadou Diallo and Rodney King cases. Let us not forget there's even been an aquittal of a black man, O.J. Simpson, when there was plenty of physical evidence. But I'd be hard pressed to think of another black man going free under similar circumstances. (If you know of one, comment below.)
The Innocence Project, which seeks to exonerate people in prison with DNA testing, has so far freed 273 people from prison, 13 of them on death row. Seventy percent of those exonerated were minorities.
All of this just underscores that the death penalty is a very final, very definitive, and very inhumane way of meting out justice for cases that usually have a built-in amount of gray area. Jurors and judges often have to make decisions with something less than irrefutable, in-your-face, no-way-of-ever-denying-it solid evidence. That doesn't mean that everyone should get off scot-free with anything less than a video tape of the crime in progress—though even that doesn't always make for a guilty verdict. Evidence is often in the eye of the beholder.
That isn't to say that sometimes there isn't irrefutable evidence: body parts in the refrigerator or buried under floor boards, for instance. In cases like that, should the death penalty be applied? I don't think anyone would weep for someone who has that kind of physical evidence against him (or her). But even those raise rounds of questions, including, is the person insane or the mentally incompetent pawn of someone much smarter? Could the evidence have been planted? Was it self defense? Unfortunately, one can raise questions for just about anything.
But if the death penalty is undesirable and uncertain enough for Troy Davis, then it is for Casey Anthony too. Some on Twitter seem to acknowledge this, as this in this Tweet by Joseph Menter: "People keep bringing up Casey Anthony... So y'all want her to be executed too? Fight murder with murder? Naw, I'll pass."
I'll pass too.
Kiri Blakeley writes about women, pop culture, and media. Follow me on Twitter.
