For the record:

May 2008.

The parole board in the state of Georgia spared a convicted killer from execution hours before he was due to die by lethal injection on Thursday and commuted his sentence to life in prison.


At Thursday's hearing, his lawyers presented a dossier of evidence attesting to his remorse and good behavior in jail, according to local media reports. The lawyers also said he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms from a cocaine addiction at the time of the crime.
 
This in a case in which there was no doubt about the evidence and the man in question pleaded guilt.


The man in question, for the record, was white.

Awry

In a little less than 4 hours, the state of Georgia is going to inject a man with enough poison to kill him, despite already having kept him in jail for 22 years, despite being entirely unable to prove his guilt, despite recanted testimonies and allegations of police pressure on witnesses, despite appeals, despite protests.

But until protests stop being protests and start literally, materially, physically halting the normal functions of the state (for yes, this is a very normal one), we cannot be surprised in the least that things like this happen and that they will continue to happen, ad infinitum.  Saddened, yes, furious, yes.  But surprised, no.

And honestly, that blood's on our hands, if we ever think that we did all we could have done about it.

Today is a disgusting day.

[Addendum:
Good intentions aside, this is a sterling portrait of irrelevance:

Wendy Gozen Brown, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, said that Troy Davis would want the protests to remain peaceful. 

"In this type of situation, there's always the potential for it to go awry, with certain groups, angry rhetoric. But Troy Davis would want people to keep fighting peacefully, for him and for, as he would put it, all of the other Troy Davis's out there." 

This is very simple.  If it does not go awry, then nothing changes.  (Awry means "crooked or turned".  Wry means "turn."  Something that is awry has taken a turn.  Something that has not gone "awry" has continued to exist the way it was.  It has remained the same.)   And all the "other Troy Davis's out there" will precisely continue to be "Troy Davis's" in that they also will get jailed and will get executed, despite whatever flurry may or may not occur on Twitter.

To speak the word peaceful in relation to the execution of a man is unconscionable.]