A 42-year-old convicted murderer from Savannah, Georgia has been sentenced to die on Wednesday. The only problem is, many say there is no evidence that Troy Davis has committed any crime.
Since the 1991 conviction, seven out of nine jurors have recanted their sworn statements, saying they were pressured by police officers into giving Davis a guilty verdict. Despite this and the fact that no murder weapon has been found and no evidence links Davis to the crime scene, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles today denied his request for clemency.
Now, Twitter users are doing their best to make a last ditch effort to save what they say is an innocent man’s life.
And Twitter wasn’t the only place where people were protesting. The NAACP, Change.org and Amnesty International all put out petitions for supporters to sign. @amnesty’s petition was retweeted more than a thousand times.
Under the steadily updating #TooMuchDoubt hashtag, users are urging others to contact the Georgia Parole Board and the District Attorney Larry Chisolm (sometimes incorrectly written as ‘Chapman’), by retweeting their contact information thousands of times. The Daily Dot received a busy signal for each phone number tweeted and could not get through.
Many users are comparing the Davis case to the Casey Anthony murder trial earlier this year. Some say race is involved since Anthony, who is white, got the benefit of the doubt while it appears that nothing will convince the Board that Davis, who is black, is innocent.
“Casey Anthony is walking the street. Troy Davis is walking to the death chamber. Only in America,” wrote @goldietaylor. Her sentiment was retweeted over a hundred times.
“Casey Anthony was found not guilty because of reasonable doubt, and Troy Davis will die tomorrow in spite of reasonable doubt,” wrote @gapconsulting in an equally popular tweet.
But some think that the action on Twitter is coming too late, accusing twitterers of hopping on the bandwagon of an injustice issue only after it has gone viral.
“Where were most these “human rights activists” about this Troy Davis situation at 10 years ago?…” asked @doliversub13, who just so happens to be an Olympian with thousands of followers.
“If you’re just now expressing shock on Troy Davis on the East Coast, I question when your work day starts,” wrote @derwingray.
Photo via World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
