RIP Troy Davis

Firstly I’d just like to say that I’m not defending Troy Davis or claiming that he is innocent. I know nothing of the case and whether or not he committed the crime. What I am saying is that in the state of Georgia, a few hours ago, a man underwent the lethal injection and was killed. Sorry, but is this or is this not the 21^st Century? How in any way can the killing of a man for a (supposed) crime be just in any sense of the word?

Putting aside all moral aspects to this argument, I would like to firstly say that this case has been going on for 20 years!!! Yep it was going on before I was even born. Can you imagine how much time, money and effort has been wasted which could have been used on more important things like, oh I don’t know, the massive famine that’s destroying half of Africa?! If he did commit the crime would it not just be so much easier to have thrown him in prison and forgotten about him? <-- lazy student argument! A recent study revealed that death row inmates cost California $184m a year (roughly £119m)! And that's just one state, there are another 34 with the death penalty. Are we not hearing daily news updates on how the world economy is flunking? There you go; Molly Fletcher has solved world poverty and the economic crisis... STOP KILLING PEOPLE!

Asides this quite obvious and widely publicised fact, there is also my purely sadistic reason for not believing in the death sentence; how many times do we hear on the news that some horrific crime has been committed but that the perpetrator has concluded by taking his own life. Surely, if someone is proved to have committed a crime and has been caught, before they’ve been able to kill themselves, they should be left in a cell to rot with the thoughts of what they’ve done and the hatred of hundreds of people bearing down on them... no..? Just me? Well you know what I mean. It’s for this reason that the argument that the death penalty works as a deterrent for crime is just completely and utterly flawed; these sorts of criminals obviously have a very blurry and muddled sense of mortality if they’re going around killing people and so the concept of their own death is hardly likely to change this perspective. The worse punishment is not being able to escape the thoughts of what they’ve done: I’m effectively advocating self-(mental)-torture over murder, if its revenge you want is that not more satisfying?

I’m sorry for my very explicit (and slightly sadistic) rant and I would love to hear your views on the subject, no matter what your opinion - but you should all know that I am always right... just kidding.. but not really! So I will leave you with the words of Mahatma Ghandi:

“An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind”.