The tragedy of Officer Mark MacPhail’s murder was compounded by Troy Davis’s drawn-out march to death. Last week, Davis was executed in the state of Georgia, despite the fact that questions still remain about whether he was guilty of the crime for which died.
Troy Davis's case represents everything wrong with the death penalty—from procedural obstacles to racial bias to witness mishandling to allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct to inadequate assistance of counsel. We at the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) litigate these constitutional issues daily as we represent people facing the death penalty in Georgia and Alabama.
I started my work at SCHR in 2001, the year of that the Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling that abolished the electric chair. It was our firm that argued the case that successfully eliminated this enduring symbol of the harshness of the southern justice system. Between the time it was first used in 1924 and its last use in 1998, Georgia used the chair to electrocute 349 African-Americans and 86 white people.
It was also in 2001 that I first became aware of the case of Troy Davis. Martina Correia, Davis’s sister, called to welcome me to the movement to end the death penalty and shared that her brother was an innocent person on Georgia’s death row. As an employee of SCHR—a firm that is dedicated to providing legal representation to people facing the death penalty who wouldn’t otherwise have lawyers regardless of guilt—I was taught to be cautious, even skeptical of claims of innocence. As I learned more about the sequence of events that led to Davis’ arrival on death row, my skepticism turned to shock and disbelief.
He maintained his innocence from the day of his arrest until his very last words on the night he was killed: “I am innocent.” No physical evidence tied Mr. Davis to the crime. He was convicted solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted or changed their story. An eyewitness testified for the first time in 2010 that he saw someone else, not Davis, shoot Officer MacPhail. And at least ten individuals have been implicated as alternative suspects.
There is simply too much doubt that persisted in his case.
When human error leads to a failure to examine critical evidence, and jurors are not informed of reasons to doubt what the state alleges, the Board of Pardons and Paroles is supposed to act  as a safety net to prevent the irreversible mistake of executing the innocent. Regrettably, last week the Parole Board declined to grant clemency to Davis. This is despite its previous statement that it would not allow an execution to proceed where there is any doubt as to guilt.
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that our criminal justice system is not devoid of error. We know that since 1976, 139 individuals have been released from death rows across the U.S., most often due to mistaken witness identification. In Georgia, this problem is particularly acute: all eight of the men who have been exonerated, thanks to the work of the Georgia Innocence Project, were wrongfully convicted on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
Some states are beginning to move away from the death penalty because of growing concerns about innocence, unfairness, discriminatory application, lack of efficacy, and other reasons. The death penalty was intended to be reserved for the worst offenders, but in practice, it is arbitrary and unfair. The system is fraught with error, plagued by poor legal representation, and discriminates on the basis of income, race, and geography among many problems that leave it too broken to be fixed.
In 1976, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, Jerome Bowden, a man with an IQ of 65, was sentenced to death in the murder of Kathryn Stryker in Columbus, Georgia. In his last words to the world before the switch was pulled, Bowden said:
I am Jerome Bowden and I would like to say my execution is to be carried out. I would like to thank the people of this institution. I hope that by my execution being carried out, it will bring some light to this thing that is wrong.
When Bowden died, legal and volunteer advocates were crushed, but his last sentence kept them working. They didn’t stop until the Georgia General Assembly passed the first law in the nation that banned the execution of persons with mental retardation. Jerome’s words fuel me and push me forward on the days when I feel there is no hope left at all.
It is hope that remains despite the disappointment, sadness, and anger over the execution of Troy Davis. As long as the state continues this futile and brutalizing exercise in vengeance, we will continue to make our treks to death row, the state capital, and the courthouses to take a public stand against this killing in our name.
Spin-offs for kids aren't all child's play. (children's magazines)
Folio: the Magazine for Magazine Management January 1, 1993 | Manly, Lorne For years, magazine publishers have attempted to latch on to the baby-boomers' disposable income with upscale magazines catering to their special interests. As terms like "cocooning" and "nesting" entered the lexicon, publishers tried parenting and family titles. Now, they're going after the boomers' kids.
Five years ago, 81 magazines were directed at kids. Today, there are more than 150. And a growing number of these launches are the offspring of existing adult titles. Times Mirror has spun off a test issue of PS4Kids from Popular Science, and is likely to produce a stand-alone prototype of Field & Stream Jr. next fall; Outside Kids, a joint venture of Mariah Publishing and Welsh Publishing, makes its debut in May; Disney Publishing is shooting for an early 1994 launch of Discover for Kids; and a special edition of Money for Kids this spring may lead to an annual magazine. newnfluniformsnow.com new nfl uniforms
The main reason: demographics. Publishers are eyeing a market of 32.8 million kids between the ages of four and 12 that represents 13 percent of the population. These children controlled an estimated $14.4 billion in 1991--up 82 percent from 1989--and influence household-spending decisions of about $182 billion a year, according to James McNeal, a professor of marketing at Texas A&M University.
Extending an existing franchise is less expensive than launching a new magazine. And the junior versions can be a cost-effective method of building brand awareness. "People are beginning to realize kids can be loyal to things," says Nina Link, senior vice president and publisher of Children's Television Workshop. "It's a way to graduate them to the parent magazine." No kidding around But companies expecting an easy editorial transition to a revenue windfall are in for a shock. "In kids' magazines, there are no formulas," says Lynn Lehmkuhl, publisher of the two-year-old Disney Adventures. "You need a subject that is hot enough to attract kids and has enough life to keep a magazine going." And although this large, affluent audience would seem a natural attraction for advertisers, print consistently loses out to television. "Print hasn't got the excitement TV offers to children," says Stuart Cox, media director in the London office of McCann-Erickson. But the declining ratings of kids' TV shows offers print an opportunity to siphon off some of the nearly $500 million advertisers spent on kids' TV in 1991.
Editors entering the field must learn that interactivity is key. "Kids like to feel they're part of the magazine," says Craig Neff, managing editor of the four-year-old Sports Illustrated for Kids, the first for-profit, spin-off entry. (Zillions--Consumer Reports for Kids and National Geographic World are older, but both are non-profit.) SI for Kids, for example, has quizzes, asks kids to design new NFL uniforms and invites readers to submit their own stories. web site new nfl uniforms
The payoff, however, must be immediate. An early version of PS4Kids contained museum listings and a calendar, but the feature was yanked after testing. "We had this idea that as adults, we should provide this service," says Fred Abatemarco, editor in chief of PS4Kids and Popular Science. "The kids had no concept of it." Stories and sentences should be short, broken up with illustrations, photographs and graphs. Editors should target articles to varied age groups, not aim for some middle ground. Kids between eight and 14 differ tremendously in their interests, and if the magazine caters to 11-year-olds, "then you're nothing to anyone," says Lehmkuhl.
Magazines must also appeal across gender lines. "Boys will rarely read stories about girls, like a fiction piece with a female illustration," says Neff. So SI for Kids portrays girls playing sports.
And publishers must rethink their ad-sales approach. "You have to avoid too many bureaucratic levels, because you won't have a 50 percent revenue stream coming from advertising," says Link.
But a separate sales staff is needed to serve the spin-off magazine, says Francis Pandolfi, president of Times Mirror Magazines. Not only are the advertisers likely to be different from those of the parent magazine, but salespeople will need to prove that print is an effective selling tool.
Getting it out there Traditional circulation models must be altered as well. Newsstand testing is virtually impossible. "You have to get in front of kids' faces," says Steve Greenberger, vice president and director of print media at Grey Advertising. Publishers could sponsor TV programs, or do cross-promotions in family-style restaurants, Greenberger suggests. SI for Kids uses 800-number commercials directed at parents to gain subscribers.
Magazine companies can also use their databases to locate subscribers with kids. Popular Science has 1.8 million subscribers, about 22 percent of whom have children. Distribution through school is another component. About 15 percent of CTW's circulation comes through sign-up sheets sent home by teachers or through Quality School plans, where kids sell magazines to raise money for school programs.
Manly, Lorne
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