A man named Troy Davis was put to death this evening in Georgia. Was he guilty of the crime? I don't know and neither do any of the folks protesting his execution. But a pretty strong case can be made that the case against him has proven to be nowhere as strong as it was back when he was convicted. It was all eyewitness testimony and most of those eyewitnesses have recanted.
A lot of writers are tonight asking some variation of the question posed by Dahlia Lithwick: Will the Troy Davis case be the one that finally turns America against the death penalty?
My answer: Nope. Before that can happen, there's going to have to be really strong evidence that some state executed an innocent white guy with no criminal record.