Georgia Executes Cop Killer Troy Davis: Progressive Heads Explode

I went to bed last night upon hearing the news that the Supreme Court was granting an 11th hour review. I didn't hear anything more until I was in my office this morning reading the Los Angeles Times, "Georgia puts convict to death despite protest." And then also at New York Times, "In Death-Penalty Debate, Execution Offers Little Closure."

And see the very even-handed piece from Associated Press, which notes that all the second thoughts on witness testimony were presented to jurors at the time of the trial, "Counting down, Ga. inmate nears execution in policeman’s killing despite pleas in US, Europe."

But the best piece on this is from Ann Coulter, "COP-KILLER IS MEDIA'S LATEST BABY SEAL":

It's nearly impossible to receive a death sentence these days -- unless you do something completely crazy like shoot a cop in full view of dozens of witnesses in a Burger King parking lot, only a few hours after shooting at a passing car while exiting a party.

That's what Troy Davis did in August 1989. Davis is the media's current baby seal of death row.

After a two-week trial with 34 witnesses for the state and six witnesses for the defense, the jury of seven blacks and five whites took less than two hours to convict Davis of Officer Mark MacPhail's murder, as well as various other crimes. Two days later, the jury sentenced Davis to death.

Now, a brisk 22 years after Davis murdered Officer MacPhail, his sentence will finally be administered this week -- barring any more of the legal shenanigans that have kept taxpayers on the hook for Davis' room and board for the past two decades.

(The average time on death row is 14 years. Then liberals turn around and triumphantly claim the death penalty doesn't have any noticeable deterrent effect. As the kids say: Duh.)

It has been claimed -- in The New York Times and Time magazine, for example -- that there was no "physical evidence" connecting Davis to the crimes that night.

Davis pulled out a gun and shot two strangers in public. What "physical evidence" were they expecting? No houses were broken into, no cars stolen, no rapes or fistfights accompanied the shootings. Where exactly would you look for DNA? And to prove what?

I suppose it would be nice if the shell casings from both shootings that night matched. Oh wait -- they did. That's "physical evidence."

It's true that the bulk of the evidence against Davis was eyewitness testimony. That tends to happen when you shoot someone in a busy Burger King parking lot.

Eyewitness testimony, like all evidence tending to show guilt, has gotten a bad name recently, but the "eyewitness" testimony in this case did not consist simply of strangers trying to distinguish one tall black man from another. For one thing, several of the eyewitnesses knew Davis personally.

The bulk of the eyewitness testimony established the following...

Continue.

Of course, the progressive left latched onto this case as a way to bring an end to capital punishment in the United States. It's just routine leftist conformity to be against the death penalty, even when the inmate's the classic poster boy for it. Progressives are stupid that way.

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "The Death of a Cop-Killer." And the reactions at Memeorandum.