America-Hold your head in shame

I couldn't let the overnight news from Georgia go without some comment.

Quite how the United States can stand and lecture the world about its democratic conduct is quite beyond me when it executes a man,twenty years after the alleged crime,with a conviction based on some rather flimsy evidence.

Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection at a prison in central Georgia for the murder of a police officer in 1989.

The execution was delayed by more than four hours as the Supreme Court considered whether to issue a stay.

Since Davis's conviction, seven of nine witnesses have changed or recanted their testimony, some have said they were coerced by police to testify against him and some say another man committed the crime.On top of that no physical evidence linked Davis to the killing.

The mere fact that the Supreme Court took so long to decide coupled with this being the fourth time that Davis had been scheduled to die makes the practice in itself inhumane.

Added to that the condemned man's final death scene proclaiming his innocence,the crowds outside the prison in a state where executions barley make the news anymore,and the whole spectacle becomes one more associated with the middle ages.

We do a lot of things wrong in the UK but one area we can hold our heads up high is the fact that we abolished Capital Punishment in the 1960's.

America,you should hold your head in shame