From Democracy Now!:

One of the worst things about executing an innocent prisoner, exonerated by DNA and recanting witnesses, is that the actual perpetrator is free and might do it again. More than anything else, this makes capital punishment an example of the original, primitive, barbaric scapegoat ritual.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of the well-known Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis, likely setting the stage for Georgia to schedule his execution. Troy Davis was convicted in 1989 of killing an off-duty white police officer, Mark MacPhail. Since then, seven of the nine non-police witnesses who fingered Davis have recanted their testimony. There’s no physical evidence that ties Davis to the crime scene.”