STF NA MÍDIA

Altogether, it had the makings
of a story that has
grabbed many armchair lawyers
and even the most casual
opponent of the death penalty.
The list of people asking that
the Georgia parole board
offer clemency has grown
from the predictable (Jimmy
Carter, Archbishop Desmond
Tutu, the Indigo Girls) to the
surprising, including 51
members of Congress, entertainment
heavyweights like
Cee Lo Green and death penalty
supporters including
William S. Sessions, a former
F.B.I. director, and Bob
Barr, a former member of
Congress, and some leaders
in the Southern Baptist church.
(Unlike some other states,
in Georgia the governor cannot
commute a death sentence;
only the parole board
can.)
Propelled by a recent flood
of digital media including
Twitter traffic and online
petition requests, the case has
become fodder for discussion
in fashionable Atlanta bistros,
Harlem street corners
and anywhere living room
sleuths gather in their search
for another Casey Anthony
trial to dissect.
On Friday, about 1,000 people
marched to Ebenezer
Baptist Church here for a
prayer vigil, one of hundreds
of rallies being organized by
Amnesty International a-
round the world.
The facts of the case itself
captured the attention of
Nancie McDermott, a North
Carolina cookbook author
who usually spends her time
in the kitchen but who took
up the cause with a passion
once she started reading a-
bout it on liberal Web sites.
“I think if my brother or son
or dear friend from college
were about to be put to death,
and there was no physical
evidence, and seven of nine
witnesses had recanted and
testified to coercion in that
original testimony, would I
shrug and say, ‘The jury made
its decision?’ ” she wrote
in an e-mail. “I just want
people, particularly all the
churchgoing people like me,
to look me in the eye and tell
me, just once, that this is
justice.”
There are some larger political
themes weaving through
the case.
As executions becomes less
common and sentences for
executions decline — dropping
to about 100 a year from
three times that in the 1990s
— the focus on execution as
a means of punishment and a
marker of the nation’s cultural
and political divide becomes
sharper, legal analysts
said.
That divide results in a culture
that in the same week can
generate hundreds of thousands
of letters of support for
Troy Davis and, conversely,
bring a cheering round of
applause from the audience
at a Republican presidential
debate when Gov. Rick Perry
of Texas was asked about the
234 executions in his state
during his term of office.
“We’ve gotten to a critical
point in the death penalty in
this country,” said Ferrel
Guillory, a professor of journalism
and mass communication
at the University of North
Carolina. “These cases are
being phased out but at the
same time they don’t make
the front page anymore, so
when one comes along with a
strong narrative and a good
advocate, it gets our attention.”
Matthew Poncelet, a Louisiana
convict, had Sister Helen
Prejean, whose story of her
work with him in the final
phase of his life brought “dead
man walking” into popular
lexicon after Hollywood
released a film version of the
case in 1995.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former
journalist and Black
Panther who was convicted
of shooting a white Philadelphia
police officer in 1981,
rode the power of his own
charisma. His case became
so popular globally that a
road in a Parisian suburb
bears his name.
Mr. Davis’s case not only
offers a good narrative with
strong characters people can
relate to — his father was a
law enforcement officer, his
mother was a churchgoer, his
sister is fighting both cancer
and for her brother’s innocence
— but has also benefited
from an explosion in social
media.
“Back in 2007, nobody outside
of Savannah knew who
Troy Davis was,” said Laura
Moye, director of Amnesty
International U.S.A.’s Death
Penalty Abolition Campaign.
“Now it’s safe to say over a
million people do.”
For proof, she offers the
633,000 petitions she and
others delivered to the parole
board in an elaborate media
event on Friday. About
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