In hundreds of death-row exonerations there is one constant: eye witnesses are the least reliable part of the evidence...

But to add to that, prosecutors never ever admit to convicting the wrong person, even after the exonerations... They are like the folks who believe that the earth is flat and that global warming is not being caused by man...

Now lets add a couple other layers... Court appointed attorney's are generally the least qualified or they wouldn't sign up to do the work... These are either folks just starting out or ones that are so lousy they can't find anyone who wants to hire them... They also operate with no resources meaning that hiring "expert witnesses" is all but impossible... In Texas there are accounts of them actually falling asleep in court...

Then there are the police... These are the folks who are out in the community and know folks and know the ones they can pressure, which in most poor & black communities is everyone... That is reality and unless one has worked in these communities one can not begin to understand how this all works... As a social workers in these neighborhoods for many years I know how that works and have seen it...

Then there is the Supreme Court... It is packed with right winged ideologues who are ***expected*** to do the dirty work for the corporations and their redneck stooges who vote for the corporate politicians who use red meat emotional issues to keep these rednecks voting for them... So the Supreme Court knows it's job in this slimy affair and does what it is supposed to do... A white guy, Lawrence Brewer, a confessed White Supremest drags a black man to hid death in Texas with tons of evidence and gets his "appeal"... Troy Davis, who has 7 of the 9 eye witnesses change their story, doesn't???

This is reality...

Making proclamations that Troy Davis was guilty is just that: a proclamation... Nothing else...

B~