One man showed no remorse and one claimed his innocence until the end, but two condemned men were put to death by lethal injection Wednesday.
The first man, white supremacist Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in Texas for the notorious dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.
Byrd’s death was a shocking act of hatred that had black people across small Texas towns looking over their shoulders for years to come.
On that horrific day in June of 1998, Brewer, John William King and Shawn Berry offered an unsuspecting Byrd a ride home. Byrd accepted that ride, and was never seen alive again. Instead, he endured an agonizing death that people in this generation only read about in history books. The men beat Byrd, chained his ankles to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him along a country road in Jasper, Texas, for no other reason than the color of his skin.
Byrd’s body, which was already skinned to the bone, began to rip apart on the road. His head came off after he hit a concrete culvert in what seemed like some merciful act from God to stop his suffering. The men then dumped his torso like garbage, went home and fell sleep.
The trio was quickly arrested and the hate crime of the century became front and center in America.
Brewer and King, a proud racist hell-bent on starting a race war, were sentenced to die, but Berry’s life was spared and he was only sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors said Berry was NOT a racist…but we imagine, he was suffering from some sort of “defect” to participate in one of the most gruesome lynchings the world had seen in decades.
At any rate, Brewer remained defiant until the end, saying if he had the chance, he would do it all over again.
He ordered a meal fit for a king as he prepared to take his last breath.
According to reports, his final meal request included two chicken fried steaks smothered in gravy, a triple meat bacon cheeseburger with all the fixins’, a cheese omelet with ground beef and vegetables, a large bowl of fried okra with ketchup, a pound of barbecue with a half loaf of white bread, three fajitas with fixings, a pizza meat lover’s special, three root beers, a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and a pint of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream.
But prison officials report he became so busy making last phone calls, he never even touched his last meal; guess he lost his appetite.
Brewer was strapped to the gurney in front of his, and Byrd’s, friends and family members. He was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m. A witness said there was a tear resting on the edge of his right eye.
In Georgia, Troy Davis, who was sentenced to die for the murder of a police officer, awaited his fate.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing police officer Mark MacPhail on August 19, 1989.
Details are sketchy about the actual events that day, but what remains clear is the 27-year-old officer was shot and killed outside a Burger King restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. Prosecutors said Davis was bashing a homeless guy in the head for asking him for a beer when MacPahil rushed over to help the victim. Prosecutors said Davis had a smirk on his face when he shot the officer in cold blood.
What gripped America was that from the beginning, Davis maintained his innocence and the case became one big “shadow of doubt,” according to his supporters.
No gun was ever found, but prosecutors say shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting for which Davis was convicted.
Seven of nine eyewitnesses recanted or contradicted their trial testimony, the ballistic evidence was later withdrawn and new witnesses interviewed identified a different shooter. Even some jurors from the original trial said they began to question if the original sentence was fair.
State and federal courts, however, repeatedly upheld Davis’ conviction. One federal judge dismissed the evidence advanced by Davis’ lawyers as “largely smoke and mirrors.”
As Davis’ end drew near, a crowd of more than 500 demonstrators cried, hugged, prayed and held candles. They represented hundreds of thousands of supporters worldwide who took up the anti-death penalty cause.
More than 600,000 people signed petitions requesting that the death penalty sentence for Davis be overturned—including appeals from the Pope Benedict XVI, the NAACP, Amnesty International, former Georgia governor and U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a former FBI director, 51 members of Congress and hip-hop mogul Sean “P. Didddy” Combs.
Another hip-hop heavyweight protested Davis’ sentence.
“I’m trying to bring the word to the young people: There is too much doubt,” rapper Big Boi, of the Atlanta-based group Outkast, said at a church near the prison.
But despite all of his support, Davis’ fate was sealed. His last ditch effort to spare his life was rejected by the U. S. Supreme Court and he began to take his final walk to the death chamber.
Before he took his last breath at 11:08 p.m., Davis repeated what he maintained all along.
“I am innocent. All I can ask is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight,” he said.
When asked Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show if he thought the state had executed an innocent man, civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton said: “I believe that they did, but even beyond my belief, they clearly executed a man who had established much, much reasonable doubt.”
In one of his last interviews to Creative Loafing in Atlanta (via Davis’ family member), Davis opened up about his feelings and his impending death.
CL: How do you feel?
Troy Davis: “I feel blessed and at peace because God has blessed me through everyone that is fighting for me.”
CL: What would your message be for your supporters around the world?
TD: “Thank you for supporting me and my family I have been truly blessed by god through you all. Thank you for showing solidarity and continuing the good fight for humanity.”
CL: Are you scared?
TD: “No scared of what? I don’t fear the devil. God has blessed me through millions of people.”
CL: If you got out of jail what would you do?
TD: “Make sure my family is ok and well taken care of due to what they have been through the last 22 years and make sure my nephew and niece gets through college and gets a good education. I would also start a program with the state and 6th or 5th grade-level and talk to them and help them to understand the future and their goals.”
Davis never had the chance to live out any of his wishes…Neither did Byrd…or MacPhail…or even Brewer. In one way or another, these four men will always be an infamous part of history.
Love it or hate it — the death penalty is real… And love it or hate it — some people believe in “an eye for an eye and a life for a life.”
Whether it’s for the man who took his hatred for another race to his grave, or the man who proclaimed his innocence until the end, our prayers go out to the families and victims in both cases.
