On Sept. 21, America witnessed its justice system at its worst. Troy Davis was executed in Georgia after a legal battle that lasted over two decades.

Davis was convicted of murdering a police officer outside of a Burger King where he was security guard in 1989. He had intervened to help a man being assaulted. This is when the prosecution claims Davis shot and killed police officer Mark MacPhail. The gun was never found, no physical evidence links Davis to the murder and seven of the nine witnesses that testified against him have since recanted their testimonies. He went to his death proclaiming his innocence.

No one will ever know whether or not Davis was guilty of the crime he was convicted of, but it is clear there was not enough evidence to put him to death.

With this tragedy of justice, it is time for our nation to reevaluate how the death penalty is used in America. While I support the death penalty in theory, I would rather see a thousand guilty murderers spared than one innocent man put to death.

The death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous murders. It should be reserved for cold-blooded killers who have no sense of humanity and no chance of ever realizing it. There must be no question that someone sentenced to death committed the crime of which he or she was convicted.

There is no way to prove without a shadow of a doubt that someone is guilty without either video or DNA evidence. There is no other way to prove that the convicted was not just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While I do not necessarily know that race played a role in his conviction, it is hard to imagine a white man in this situation. Had a white man been convicted under the same circumstances as Davis, his case likely would have been granted clemency and his sentence at the least reduced to life in prison. While race may not have played a role, there is speculation that the witnesses that testified against Davis were intimidated by the police force. These ideas bring back haunting memories of America’s past.

Sacco and Vanzetti, Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro Boys were just a few of the victims of culturally charged false accusations. The boxer, Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, was imprisoned for murder for years before being exonerated. Most believe he was imprisoned out of racial motivations. On the flip side, when a servant named Hattie Carol was killed in Maryland by her white boss William Zantzienger, the murderer was sentenced to only six months in prison.

Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 people were lynched, 3,446 of them black. These were hasty, often baseless executions in which the accused would have been exonerated had they had their days in court.

Studies have shown that even today black people convicted of killing whites are far more likely to be sentenced to death than whites who are convicted of killing blacks. Only 17 white people have been executed for the murder of blacks, as compared to 255 blacks executed for the murder of whites. With the history that this nation has regarding race and diversity, and the false convictions that sprang from prejudice, it is hard to make the case that in the words of Bob Dylan, “the ladder of the law has no top and no bottom.”

Combining America’s history of false conviction with our founder’s commitment to true justice makes it difficult to make the case that the death penalty should continue. Nonetheless, I do believe it has its place. However, the fact that Charles Manson sat alive and protected in a cell while Davis was executed offends every concept of justice in which I believe. The death penalty should be reserved for the most vicious and vile people who without any possible doubt committed the most vicious and vile crimes on the face of this planet.

The events that took place in Georgia have reminded us of America’s shameful past and illustrated that the death penalty must have the qualifier of certainty. Without undisputed DNA evidence on the murder weapon or videotape of the murderer killing the victim, this certainty is unobtainable. All executions without this undisputed evidence should be stopped, and proscription of death sentences in the future should face far more scrutiny.

Spencer Lindsay ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in political science.