September 2011
7 posts
When I was seventeen I hit upon a profoundly powerful subject that would substantially alter my life. Through the course of research for a paper, I (only then!) discovered that innocent people were in prison, and on death row, even, executed, even, our justice as I knew it was being miscarried daily, weekly, time over.
The summer I was eighteen I worked at the Innocence Project, doing Development work; I read case upon case and studied sentencing statistics and faulty and defective police tactics and the role of RACE in our societal unfairness. I watched a man be legally freed after having spent nineteen years in prison for murders he did not commit.
The summer I was twenty I met my first exonerated persons and wondered how they could ever smile. I wrote a personal statement seeking admission to law school, talking about the cause I had found in this palpable, widespread, and state-perpetuated horror.
The summer I was twenty-one I saw the Norfolk Four on a podium, thanking their totally and remarkably stubborn attorneys with tears in their eyes, for, without them, they would still be languishing, wasting away, in a Virginia DOC facility.
When I turned twenty-three I entered law school, and, only being weeks in, I view tonight’s proceedings with renewed vigor and… shock.
This is different, because this is not an Innocence Project success story. This will not become a folded card on a fundraiser table, Troy Davis will not be thanking his tireless attorneys for believing in him, he will not be able to walk through those gates as so many have after being sent through them in the first place for no real reason.
I sit here with tears in my eyes because this country has made a statement and the statement is terrifying: “We don’t care.”
I used to fight hard for the concept of the death penalty, and I read an article about it yesterday, about how people fall into three camps: squarely for, squarely against, and, like me, supportive of the concept but realistic, because, good lord, we cannot do this right. We cannot do this right. We did not do this right.
In the summer of 2010, Davis won a new evidentiary hearing to examine the new evidence that had come to light since his 1991 conviction. The outcome was a proclamation that this didn’t change anything — that seven witnesses deciding to recant their testimony didn’t mean anything — that this only established some new “minimal doubt.”
Minimal?
Death is not minimally final. Minimal doubt is doubt. Any doubt is too much doubt.
Our country has erred, those in control failed to step in, and tonight, our criminal justice system proved itself to lack any justice at all. At 11:08 PM tonight, my country executed a man that it failed to prove guilty.
I fear the legal world I am soon to enter. But I hope and pray that I and my cohorts can effect real change, and make sure that this never happens, not ever again.
I was right about September being Injury-Prone Month. And also…Start of Law School Month. It’s been tough to work in, and, having solved my shin splints issue, my hip flexor is swiftly replacing it as the pain of choice.
Anyway, week 8:
Total mileage: 20
Longest run: 10
Positive moment: Running 10 miles and realizing that at this point all I need to do is maintain and I’m golden.
[Obviously I’m skipping all my short runs here, which may account for the hip issues this week.]
-
Week 9:
Total mileage: 13
Longest run: 7
Positive moment: I picked up the pace on my last two miles so that I rounded out the 7 miles with an overall 9-minute pace, and that includes water walks and stoplights. Pretty pleased with that. Oh, and that was a great sunset (see above).
[Hip! This was only two runs and I’m going to hit the gym hard this week. Boo.]
For all those who wanted an update on my life: I am now a law student. I guess everyone already knows that part.
