Vol. 71/No. 47      December 17, 2007

The Georgia State Supreme Court is weighing a decision on whether to grant a new trial to Davis, a 38-year-old Black man on death row. The case is a frame-up. Seven of the nine witnesses who once testified that he killed a cop have recanted; four more have come forward to say someone else is guilty. Yet prosecutors continue their drive to execute Davis.

At of the end of 2005, there were 3,254 prisoners on death row in the United States. Their average age at the time of arrest was 28. According to Amnesty International, the United States is one of the six countries in the world that carried out more than 90 percent of all executions in 2006.

The death penalty is part of the arsenal of weapons used by the owners of capital to try to deal blows to the rising resistance, confidence, and increased combativity among growing numbers of workers in the United States. It goes hand in hand with beefing up the numbers of cops in the streets and at the borders, the assault of workers’ rights in court, and the increase in secret police spying.

While state-sanctioned murders continue, the number of working people executed by cops in the streets claims far more workers’ lives each year. And these figures pale by comparison to the number of working people killed annually as a result of the bosses’ profit-driven speedup, lengthening of hours, and gutting of the most basic safety protections on the job.

As the economic crisis deepens, the U.S. rulers will deepen their assault on the wages, jobs conditions, and living standards of workers and farmers. To try and shore up their dying system, the capitalists will have to cut far deeper than anything they have carried out thus far.

Jailing and executions are one way the ruling class is preparing now for what they will do as working people organize to defend themselves from this assault. Already, the U.S. incarceration rate is the highest in the world. There are more than 2.2 million people in U.S. jails and the numbers are steadily growing: up 2.8 percent from 2005 to 2006, with a 4.8 percent increase in female inmates.

The weight of this repression falls disproportionately on Blacks and Latinos. According to Department of Justice statistics for 2005, Blacks were 42 percent of those on death row. Over the course of their lives, one-third of all Black males, one-sixth of all Latino males, and one in 17 white males will do time.

These statistics reflect how the cops, courts, and jails work under capitalism. The anti-working-class, racist use of capital punishment is one reason to demand the Georgia State Supreme Court void the death penalty in Davis’s case and grant him a new trial. The labor movement should support his case and demand abolition of the death penalty at every level.
 
 
Related articles:
Demonstrators in Atlanta: Stop execution of Troy Davis!  
 
 
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