STF NA MÍDIA

Mr. Kendall’s group marked
the holiday with a new Web
site, Constitutionalprogressives.org,
which attempts to
rebut Tea Party arguments
about the Constitution.
While the Tea Party talks
about the 10th amendment
and states’ rights, and argues
against the role of the Federal
Reserve, the Web site
argues the ways in which the
Constitution gives the federal
government the authority
to do things like set up a central
bank, and to regulate
health care.
The Web site also tries to get
progressives as excited about
the Constitution as conservatives
are — arguing it as
the basis for progressive goals,
including the right to
same-sex marriage.
Constitution Day is hardly
sweeping the nation — Tea
Party Patriots could not
quantify how many schools it
had persuaded to participate.
Still, if both sides want Americans
to be talking more
about the Constitution, they
are succeeding. Many schools
were passing out pocketsize
Constitutions, in addition
to the Tea Party Patriots
coloring books.
In Orange County, Calif.,
high school students planned
to watch a reenactment of
Gideon v. Wainwright, the
landmark case concerning
the Sixth amendment’s guarantee
to a fair trial, including
right to counsel. And in
Nevada City, Calif., middle
schools planned to show the
now classic “Schoolhouse
Rock” segment about the
Constitution, with the preamble,
sung folky, as its refrain.
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US) • NATIONAL • 16/9/2011
Digital Age Drives Rally to Keep a Georgia Inmate From Execution
By KIM SEVERSON
ATLANTA — As Troy Davis
faces his fourth execution
date, the effort to save him
has come to rival the most
celebrated death row campaigns
in recent history.
On Monday, the Georgia
State Board of Pardons and
Paroles will give Mr. Davis
what is by all accounts his
last chance to avoid death by
lethal injection, scheduled for
Wednesday.
Whether history will ultimately
judge Mr. Davis guilty
or innocent, cultural and legal
observers will be left to
examine why Mr. Davis,
convicted of killing a Savannah
police officer, Mark
MacPhail, 22 years ago, has
been catapulted to the forefront
of the national conversation
when most of the
3,251 other people on death
row in the United States have
not.
The answer, experts say, can
be found in an amalgam of
changing death penalty politics,
concerns about cracks in
the judicial system, the swift
power of digital political
organizing and, simply, a
story with a strong narrative
that caught the public’s attention.
“Compelling cases that make
us second-guess our justice
system have always struck a
chord with the American
public,” said Benjamin T.
Jealous, president of the
N.A.A.C.P. “Some are simply
more compelling in that
they seem to tap deeply into
the psyche of this country. A
case like this suggests that
our justice system is flawed.”
Like others involved in the
case, he credits Mr. Davis’s
sister, Martina Correia, a
media-friendly former soldier
who has long argued that the
police simply got the wrong
man, with keeping the story
alive.
And the story has been compelling.
A parade of witnesses
have recanted since the
original trial, and new testimony
suggests the prosecution’s
main witness might be
the killer.
There are racial undertones
— Mr. Davis is black and the
victim was white — and legal
cliffhangers, including a
stay in 2008 that came with
less than 90 minutes to spare
and a Hail Mary pass in 2009
that resulted in a rare Supreme
Court decision.
S T F N A M Í D I A • 2 2 d e s e t e m b r o d e 2 0 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P Á G I N A 9 9