Keane drummer Richard Hughes outside the White House Photo: Jesse Quin
I spend most of my time playing the drums with Keane, but now I'm heading to death row in Jackson, Georgia to visit a man called Troy Davis. I must admit, I'm a little nervous.
I've been to Georgia many times – we've played shows in Atlanta – but it's my first trip to Jackson. I've never been to a prison, let alone death row. Yet I've completed the visitor application form (category: "friend", though Troy and I have never met) and the police certificate application form (criminal record check). This Saturday I'll be walking into the Georgia diagnostic and classification state prison.
What awaits me through the gates? Well Troy, now 40, just a little older than me, has spent the best years of his life on death row for a crime he's always denied committing. Eighteen years ago he was sentenced to death for the murder of an off-duty police officer – Mark MacPhail – shot dead outside a Savannah Burger King in 1989. Troy's fight to clear his name has attracted support from the pope, Desmond Tutu, Jesse Jackson and several US politicians, and me.
I first heard about Troy through the US media network Democracy Now! and the tireless campaigning of his sister Martina. Here's what you need to know. The prosecution case against Troy was entirely reliant on witness testimony, there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. After the trial, seven out of nine prosecution witnesses recanted or contradicted their statements, many saying the police forced them to make damning false statements. (One "eye-witness" later admitted he'd seen nothing but under intense pressure from police interrogators had signed a pre-prepared statement he hadn't read, not least because he was illiterate). Meanwhile, since the trial significant evidence has emerged implicating another person as the murderer. In short, Troy was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time and the Savannah police went after him.
A lot of innocent people end up on death row. Since 1973, 135 condemned US prisoners have been released after key information emerged. During the same period over 1,150 people were executed. How many of the dead will eventually be proven innocent? The New Yorker recently published a long article about the likely innocence of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in Texas in 2004 after his three children died in a house fire. Willingham rejected the offer of a life sentence in return for a guilty plea, protesting his innocence to the end.
Troy's own situation remains perilous. He's had three execution dates and last year came within two hours of death. Recently, though, there's better news. Last month the US supreme court ordered a new hearing which could allow vital evidence to be heard for the first time.
So I'm going to Georgia with Alistair Carmichael MP and an Amnesty International representative to try to maintain momentum behind Troy's bid for justice. Along with other fantastic Scottish campaigners like Karen Torley, Alistair was involved in helping secure last year's release of the Scotsman Kenny Richey from death row in Ohio. As chair of the parliamentary group for the abolition of the death penalty, Alistair recognises in Troy Davis' case an iconic miscarriage of justice that may help tip the balance of public opinion against capital punishment.
Maybe it's because I'm from a country where the death penalty hasn't existed during my lifetime, but I'm amazed the modern world still allows judicial killing. Capital punishment is just plain wrong. It's time the human race categorically rejected it: no human has the right to take another's life in these circumstances. Meanwhile the risk of executing one innocent person is never a price worth paying. If Britain still had capital punishment would the Guildford Four or the Birmingham Six have been hanged? How about Barry George?
Progress on banning the death penalty in the US is slow, but it's happening. In March New Mexico governor Bill Richardson repealed capital punishment in his state, saying: "I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime." Was ever a truer word spoken by a politician?
It's fair to ask: is Troy's case any of my business? I guess it isn't. But if I was on death row I don't think I'd be too fussy about who was speaking up for me. Inevitably Troy is going to become a statistic: either one more probable innocent tragically denied his life, or – hopefully – another man released from death row. But this is not only about Troy – it's also about the people whose names we don't know, whose cases aren't being written about. That's why I'm going to death row this weekend.
Amnesty International's petition on the Troy Davis case
