In What Way Justice?
What does it mean to be an American the day after Georgia may have just murdered an innocent man?
Read the first words of the preamble to our Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice.”
Read the phrase engraved above the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court: “Equal Justice Under Law.”
And read the reaction by the widow of the man Troy Jones was convicted of murdering 22 years ago: “We have laws in this land so that there is not chaos.”
In this year of global upheaval – from Egypt to Wisconsin – what is happening to our capacity to serve as the world’s beacon of freedom and equality? And when did our conception of justice shift so mightily – from securing equal treatment to avoiding chaos?
For those of us concerned with comprehensive school reform, the execution of Troy Davis is more than a temporary news item. Just twenty years old when he was arrested, Davis was also a high school dropout. And although his full reasons for doing so are unclear, what is clear is that of the ~1.2 million young people who leave
