I have completed the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge!

This post is to record how I went compared to my challenge criteria, and to give a very short overview of each book.

First, the books. They were:

(1) Jessica Au: Cargo (Genre: YA)
This book is an excellent portrayal of adolescence (and adolescents), by way of three teenagers living in a coastal holiday town. (Full review here.)

(2) Kerry Greenwood: Cooking the Books (Genre: Crime/Mystery)
The sixth Corinna Chapman mystery. While a fun read, I did not enjoy this quite as much as earlier books in the series. From a mystery point of view, I was unsatisfied with parts of the ending. From a social point of view, there was a problematic approach to a trans* character, including transphobia expressed by a couple of characters with whom the reader is intended to sympathise, and whom the main character likes.

(3) Mrs Aeneas Gunn: We of the Never Never (Genre: Memoir/Australian Classic)
A book of its time, worth reading to understand ideas of the time, but beware of a modern reaction to such ideas (especially in relation to race). (Full review here.)

(4) Anita Heiss: Manhattan Dreaming (Genre: Chicklit)
I did not particularly enjoy this book. While the plot and story were pretty good, I found the main character irritating much of the time, the dialogue clunky, and the ending both entirely predictable and too rushed when it happened.

(5) Alice Pung: Unpolished Gem (Genre: Autobiography)
A great book, not only a good story told well, but one which may help build insight and understanding between different parts of the Australian community. (Full review here.)

(6) Henry Handel Richardson: The Getting of Wisdom (Genre: Literature)
An enjoyable read, and a good way to learn about some parts of Australian society around the turn of the twentieth century, but without a lot of depth for a modern reader.

(7) Christine Wallace: Greer – Untamed Shrew (Genre: Biography)
A valuable background to Germaine Greer and her writing; especially useful in light of the contemporary media’s habit of asking Dr Greer for “feminist” commentary.

(8) Kim Westwood: The Courier’s New Bicycle (Genre: Sci Fi/Fantasy/Spec Fic)
I enjoyed this book greatly, for Ms Westwood’s solid writing, her well-imagined dystopian near-future Melbourne and her use of trans* and genderqueer characters. However, as a mystery, it is a touch too predictable with a few too many coincidences. Many readers, like myself, will thoroughly enjoy it despite this, but mystery-lovers should be warned!

(9) Alexis Wright: Carpentaria (Genre: Modern Literature/Award Winners)
A brilliant novel about Culture, Country and Dreaming. Some effort required due to the often non-linear story, but well worth that effort. Everyone should read it. (Full review here.)

(10) Judith Wright: Selected Poems (Genre: Poetry)
Sublime. I should read more poetry more often, especially when it is this good.

Here are my criteria again:

I was a Franklin-fantastic Devoted Eclectic. This means I committed to read at least 10 books, in as many different genres as possible, and to write at least 4 reviews, including at least one substantial one.

To this, I added the following criteria:

(1) No repeat authors.
(2) No books I have already read (although I am allowed to read books by authors whose other books I have read before).
(3) No repeat genres (sub-genres count as separate genres for this purpose).
(4) At least three substantial reviews.
(5) At least two Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander authors (h/t lauredhel for this idea).
(6) At least one immigrant (or first-generation-Australian) author (in practice, it may well be more than this, given Australia’s immigrant history).
(7) At least one book set in a rural setting.
(8) I’m not starting until 1 January 2012 (this is a real challenge – I always do a lot of reading between Christmas and New Year, and this year has been no exception – and so I have held off reading some books I really want to read for the purpose of the challenge).
(9) I aim to finish the challenge by the end of February.

I posted a precis of how I met most of those criteria when I posted my list of books. Here is the updated precis:

First: as you can see, there are 10 books, from different genres, and I posted four substantive reviews (linked above, also see my series page for a full list of my reviews). In addition, I wrote at least a one sentence review for each of the books.

As for the additional criteria:

(1) There were no repeat authors.
(2) I had not read any of the books before. In fact, Kerry Greenwood and (a few poems by) Judith Wright are the only authors on this list whose work I had read before. There were a few books I have been meaning to read for years, so I was happy to have the incentive to read them, and kind of glad I hadn’t read them before so I could read them for the challenge. Win-win-win!
(3) No repeat genres. I know I’m cutting it fine with a couple, but I think I’ve done pretty well here.
(4) Four substantial reviews.
(5) Anita Heiss and Alexis Wright are Indigenous Australians. Dr Anita Heiss is a member of the Wiradjuri nation and Alexis Wright is member of the Waanyi nation.
(6) Alice Pung is a first generation Australian. Some of the others might be, but I’m not sure. The aim of this criterion is for cultural diversity, and so I was also on the lookout for non-Anglo names generally (which is how I found Jessica Au). I found it much harder than I had assumed I would to find any Australian women writers with non-Anglo names. This is telling.
(7) We of the Never Never, Carpentaria and Cargo are set in rural settings, as are some of Judith Wright’s poems. The Getting of Wisdom is partly set in a rural setting, but it’s not really the point of the book.
(8) & (9) both done.

Thanks again to all those who set up this challenge, especially Elizabeth Lhuede and Shelleyrae of Book’d Out.

The fact that I finished the challenge well before the end of January confirms what I said in my sign-up post: this was not a big challenge for me. I already read a lot of books by Australian women writers, I read fast, reading is my favourite way to relax, and, as I am on holidays at the moment, I have had a lot of reading time.

That is why I added the extra criteria, and I’m glad I did. The extra criteria meant that I did something other than simply read the books I would otherwise have been reading. In fact, just about every book I read for the challenge was one I specifically bought for the challenge. In the end, I read much more non-fiction than usual (I do not usually read much – I need a good story, and too much non-fiction spends too much time “telling the truth” (ha!) rather than “telling the story”), and I read a number of books I have been intending to read for a while.

Further, the biggest aspect of the challenge for me was, and was always going to be, writing reviews. This is not something I normally do, and not something I consider myself very good at. However, not only did I write the four substantial reviews which have been posted here at Wallaby (and cross-posted at Hoyden About Town), but I also wrote a brief review for every book, which you can find at my Goodreads page.

In keeping with all this, and the purpose of the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge in general, during the rest of 2012, I intend to continue to read books by Australian women writers (well, I would anyway), to continue to seek out books that I would not normally read, and to write reviews – and I will aim for a proportionate number of substantial reviews (ie around 40%). Once again, the last part of that will be the most challenging.

Substantial reviews will continue to be posted here and at Hoyden About Town, and all reviews will be accessible via my Goodreads page.

Let the challenge continue!

You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Blurb from Goodreads

This is an original take on a classic story – how a child of immigrants moves between two cultures. In place of piety and predictability, however, Unpolished Gem offers a vivid and ironic sense of both worlds. It combines the story of Pung’s life growing up in suburban Footscray with the inherited stories of the women in her family – stories of madness, survival and heartbreak. Original and brave, this is a girl’s own story that introduces an unforgettable voice and captures the experience of Asian immigrants to Australia.

My review

First, a bit of background to my reading of this book. I grew up in a part of Sydney where there were many people of Asian descent. Those who were my age had often either been born in Australia to parents who were recent immigrants, or had come to Australia as children. Many of my friends were of Asian descent, from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I tended to see the similarities between my friends and me – they were, after all, my friends – and I often did not understand why they reacted to certain things so differently, especially in relation to their interactions and relationships with their families.

In the years since high school, I have grown to understand much more. Unpolished Gem allowed me to take another leap in my understanding of some of my friends. At the very least, this means that if Ms Pung is writing for the wider Australian audience, to give them an insight into the life of a certain section of the Australian community, she has nailed it. (I am quite curious to know if she has nailed the audience within the section of the Australian community she is writing about.)

Ms Pung’s writing is impeccable. By this I mean not that her sentences and paragraphs are well-structured and grammatically correct, although they are that, too, but that Ms Pung’s narrative allows the reader to step inside the book and, to a significant extent, empathise with her. The reader is, accordingly, able to understand Ms Pung’s emotional reactions to the situations she describes. It was this which allowed me to come to a much better understanding about my friends than I had before. It is not that I think all – or, even, any – of my friends had precisely the same experiences as Ms Pung, but that, by understanding the background in Ms Pung’s story, I was able to better imagine what might have been happening for my friends in similar situations.

Such an understanding is important to me personally, and may be important personally to many others. It is also important socially. Ms Pung’s family has much in common, in terms of experiences and background, with many other Australians and their families – not only those who came to Australia at around the same time as, and in similar circumstances to, Ms Pung’s family, but those who are coming to Australia now. In order to ensure that we can be an Australian community, as many of us as possible from as many parts of Australian society need to have some insight into other parts of our society. Unpolished Gem will help to increase the level of insight between communities.

Finally, this book is also an excellent story, rather than merely a piece of writing about what happened. As a result, this book is likely to be quite an enjoyable read for those who, like me, do not normally enjoy non-fiction and memoir writing as much as fiction.

This is a review for the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Blurb from Goodreads

An Australian classic. Depicts the enduring hardships of life in the Australian outback and the battles against sexist and racial prejudices.

My review

One of the things I tried to do for this challenge was to read a number of books I have been meaning to read for some time. We of the Never Never was one such book. Because it is an Australian classic from the early 20th century, I expected to find parts of it confronting, and in that, I was not disappointed.

A quick precis: the book is a memoir of the author’s first year on the Elsey, a station in the Northern Territory, several days’ journey (by the modes of transport then available) from Katherine. She is there because she has just married the Elsey’s manager, referred to in the book as “the Maluka” (this is later explained to be a name given to him by the Aboriginal people they have contact with and is, at least, so the author tells us, untranslateable). She is the only non-Aboriginal woman on the Elsey. She tells the story of her journey from Darwin to the Elsey early in the Wet season, and goes on to narrate other episodes, including staffing difficulties, the completion of the homestead and trips out on the station.

The book is a product of its time, and much of what I expected to, and did, find confronting is a reflection of that. The best example of this is the author’s attitude towards race and class. She – or, at least, her persona as narrator – for the most part likes the people she finds on the Elsey, whether they are Black, white or Chinese (the cooks), but her attitude towards all of them is very plainly that of the lady of the manor towards the peasants in the village. Even when describing situations in which another person knows more than she does, her tone is patronising and condescending. This is most obvious in relation to her attitude towards the Aboriginal people she describes. There is no acknowledgement that she is discussing people who come from a cultural background entirely unlike hers, who have a different set of values to hers. Rather, she judges them as if her values are the only possible standard, and finds them lacking and childlike. There is a considerable degree of the “noble savage” myth in her perception of them, and a total lack of understanding of the great injustice that had already been done to them, which was continuing, and to which she contributed. I found this jarring and insulting.

I also found the author’s attitude to gender roles troubling, although once again, I can understand it to be a product of the time. She readily accepts her position as the (relatively) cosseted sole white woman, and all that goes with that. That said, she shows a willingness to chip in that belies her princess-like status to some extent, and one might wonder how much of the avowed compliance with gender roles was exaggerated for the audience.

Finally, while the author acknowledges many of the hardships, difficulties and dangers faced by people living on a remote station in the early twentieth century, the book as a whole still seems to me to romanticise that life to a significant extent.

Despite my criticisms, Mrs Gunn wrote clearly and in a manner generally easy to follow, although, because of the pseudonyms she uses for many characters (particularly the white stockmen), it can be easy to get them confused. This perhaps contributes to the classist overtones of the book. Similarly, she refers to her husband as “the Maluka” from the beginning of the book, but the explanation does not come until about a third of the way in.

We of the Never Never is worth reading for two reasons. First, it is a book by a woman about a woman’s life in a situation about which we know comparatively little (especially as it applied to women). Secondly, and more importantly, it gives some insight (although not, perhaps, the insight the author intended) into attitudes of the day in relation to race and gender, especially the former, and the atrocities committed under the guiding light of those attitudes. This helps us to understand how far we have to go in trying to redress those wrongs.

This is a review for the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Blurb from Goodreads (NB: edited for ableist language)

Gillian is fifteen, [disabled] by [an] accident but dreams of swimming across oceans.

Jacob is fourteen and yearns for his brother’s life.

Frankie is fifteen and in love with the new deckhand on her father’s boat.

As the story of these three desires intertwine over the course of one lazy summer in a small coastal town, Cargo is by turns heart-wrenching, beautiful and explosive.

In a simple time of truth and change, these are characters who do not know themselves, yet through their innocence we come to understand what it means to be young, and have all the troubles in the world.

My review

Cargo is a beautiful, moving book. Ms Au has captured the insecurities of adolescence brilliantly.

Set in a coastal town in around the late 1990s or early 2000s, Cargo follows three teenagers over a period of several summer and autumn months: Frankie, Gillian and Jacob. Frankie is the daughter of a local entrepreneur, Gillian is rediscovering herself after a serious accident a year or two previously, and Jacob is trying to get out of the shadow of his older brother.

The novel explores friendships, family, sexuality and a growing awareness of what adulthood will mean for each of the three characters.

All characters are apparently heterosexual and white, but some class issues are explored, as are some issues relating to people with disabilities.

This is the kind of YA book which adults will also find it very easy to enjoy (and quick to read). In the first place, the writing is excellent. Secondly, Ms Au’s characters are not only well-written and believable, but easy to sympathise with. The thoughts and emotions of each main character are drawn rather than described, so the reader thinks and feels along with the characters without even trying, and with understanding rather than a feeling of being told.

I put the book down feeling hope for each character, looking forward to their futures in much the same way I looked forward to my own when I was an adolescent.

This is a review for the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Blurb from Goodreads

Carpentaria is Alexis Wright’s second novel, an epic set in the Gulf country of northwestern Queensland.

The novel’s portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other.

Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel teems with extraordinary characters – the outcast saviour Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers of the family, the queen of the rubbish-dump and the fish-embalming king of time, Angel Day and Normal Phantom – figures of such an intense imagining, they stand like giants in this storm-swept world….

My review

I can see why Carpentaria won a Miles Franklin Award. It is a big book which tells an important story in a manner likely to be novel to many readers.

On its face, Carpentaria is the story of a town, Desperance, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, giving the reader an insight into tensions within the Aboriginal communities on the outskirts of the town and between them and the white people who live in the town itself. Underneath that, and far more importantly, it is a story about family, Country and Culture.

It was at first difficult for me to follow, as the first few chapters take an entirely non-linear path and at times appear somewhat unrelated. However, if the reader simply reads and accepts these chapters as separate stories, it soon becomes clear that they set the scene for the main events of the novel, as well as introducing many of the characters. Nothing is there by accident and no reading is wasted. The book is never entirely linear, but does become easier to follow, and the story easier to comprehend, as the reader learns more.

To try to explain more would give too much away. Let it suffice to say that Ms Wright’s work is meticulous, and I suspect each word was placed with care. The reader is in safe hands.

This is a review for the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

As per my last post, I will be starting the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge tomorrow.

I have collected over 20 books by Australian women writers which I have not read before, and have selected 10 which, taken together, satisfy the extra criteria I set for myself.

Those 10 books are:

(1) Jessica Au: Cargo (Genre: YA)
(2) Kerry Greenwood: Cooking the Books (Genre: Crime/Mystery)
(3) Mrs Aeneas Gunn: We of the Never Never (Genre: Memoir/Australian Classic)
(4) Anita Heiss: Manhattan Dreaming (Genre: Chicklit)
(5) Alice Pung: Unpolished Gem (Genre: Autobiography)
(6) Henry Handel Richardson: The Getting of Wisdom (Genre: Literature)
(7) Christine Wallace: Greer – Untamed Shrew (Genre: Biography)
(8) Kim Westwood: The Courier’s New Bicycle (Genre: Sci Fi/Fantasy/Spec Fic)
(9) Alexis Wright: Carpentaria (Genre: Modern Literature/Award Winners)
(10) Judith Wright: Selected Poems (Genre: Poetry)

I will read the other books I collected, but which did not make it to my list of 10, in due course. They are on my Goodreads shelf for the challenge if you want to check them out.

So, how am I going with my criteria?

(1) There are no repeat authors.
(2) I have not read any of these books before. In fact, Kerry Greenwood and (a few poems by) Judith Wright are the only authors on this list whose work I have read before. There are a few books I have been meaning to read for years, so I’m happy to have the incentive to read them, and kind of glad I haven’t read them before so I can read them for the challenge. Win-win-win!
(3) No repeat genres. I know I’m cutting it fine with a couple, but I think I’ve done pretty well here.
(4) This is an ongoing criterion.
(5) Anita Heiss and Alexis Wright are Indigenous Australians. Dr Anita Heiss is a member of the Wiradjuri nation and Alexis Wright is member of the Waanyi nation.
(6) Alice Pung is a first generation Australian. Some of the others might be, but I’m not sure. The aim of this criterion is for cultural diversity, and so I was also on the lookout for non-Anglo names generally (which is how I found Jessica Au). I found it much harder than I had assumed I would to find any Australian women writers with non-Anglo names. This is telling.
(7) We of the Never Never and Carpentaria are set in rural settings, as are some of Judith Wright’s poems. Cargo might be, too. It’s set on the coast, seemingly in a tourist town, but possibly in the city. It’s hard to tell more than that from skimming the first few pages.
(8) I am on track to fulfill this criterion as at midnight tonight.
(9) This is an ongoing criterion.

I will be posting reviews here as well as on Goodreads, so stay tuned. When I have finished the challenge, I will re-post the list of books with a sentence or two about each one.

If any of you have read, or will read, any of these books, I look forward to hearing your views, too.

Thanks to lauredhel and Galactic Suburbia, I have been made aware of the 2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge.

In brief, a person can sign up to read a specified number of books within the year, and to write a (smaller) specified number of reviews. There are different levels of the challenge, and you can add other aspects to your own challenge to make it more personally challenging.

Given that I read quite a lot, and that my reading is skewed towards women writers (and often towards Australian women writers), and that my genre tastes are fairly catholic, it makes sense for me to go for the Franklin-fantastic Devoted Eclectic. This means I am committing to read at least 10 books, in as many different genres as possible, and to write at least 4 reviews, including at least one substantial one.

However, this will not be particularly challenging for me – I think I could get it done very comfortably by the end of January, even with the reviews (although these do add another dimension, not being something I would normally do).

So here is what I am doing to make it more challenging:

(1) No repeat authors.
(2) No books I have already read (although I am allowed to read books by authors whose other books I have read before).
(3) No repeat genres (sub-genres count as separate genres for this purpose).
(4) At least three substantial reviews.
(5) At least two Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander authors (h/t lauredhel for this idea).
(6) At least one immigrant (or first-generation-Australian) author (in practice, it may well be more than this, given Australia’s immigrant history).
(7) At least one book set in a rural setting.
(8) I’m not starting until 1 January 2012 (this is a real challenge – I always do a lot of reading between Christmas and New Year, and this year has been no exception – and so I have held off reading some books I really want to read for the purpose of the challenge).
(9) I aim to finish the challenge by the end of February.

I have also joined Goodreads. You can find me here, although you will only be able to view my profile if you are a Goodreads member.

If you’re interested they are:

Quickhit: Malaria vaccine now a reality – the post title says it all.

Mortgagees vs tenants – about NAB’s attempt in Melbourne to have a tenant evicted immediately, rather than on 28 days’ notice, after the bank, as mortgagee, took possession of the property following default under the mortgage by the landlord/mortgagor (NB: the bank withdrew its application, probably because of the public outcry).

Rarely used laws? Depends who you ask – about the fact that charges for public order offences are only rarely used from the point of view of privileged groups; their overuse is a real problem for marginalised groups, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This is what I’m getting at:SMH front page clip showing an article about eliminating bingo wings (for women) in the Life & Style section
SMH front page clip showing an article about ‘giving me 20′ (for men) in the Executive Style section

I’ve written about this kind of thing before, but don’t have time right now to go back and find you links, but basically, here’s my beef:

Women are in the Life & Style section.

Men are in the Executive Style section.

Really, SMH?

We’ve known for a long time that “Life & Style” is really just another way of saying “Trivial stuff the WIMMINZ like” for many newspapers and magazines. Likewise, it’s not exactly new for the “Executive Style” category to be coded “IMPORTANT STUFF FOR MASCULINE MACHO MEN WHO LOVE BLACK COS THAT’S MANLY AND COLOURS ARE GIRLY” (please excuse the caps, but I feel like it’s being shouted at me whenever I see that section).

Because, of course, all executives are men. Of course. /sarcasm

Seriously, SMH. Surely you can do better than this?

(This is apart from the likely problems with the articles themselves, which I admit to not having read. Have at ‘em in comments!)

Cross-posted.

An older white woman stands holding a poster that says 'Not in my name' in capitals. Image from the javacolleen Flickr stream.

In many states of the USA, one of the penalties available for first degree murder* is death. While the USA is far from the only country to retain the death penalty, it is the only western country to still have it,** and to that extent, it appears to be a bit of an anomaly.

In this context, it’s useful to know something about the relevant international instruments.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in December 1948, contains a right to “life, liberty and security of person” (Art 3), but no explicit rejection of the death penalty. This was hugely political: a number of nations (including the USA) did not want the international community poking its nose into their business.

This is reflected in international treaties from the 1950s and 1960s, such as the European Convention on Human Rights (Art 2) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (Art 6). These acknowledged that some countries retained the death penalty, and made it clear that such a sentence could be carried out only in certain circumstances.*** Article 6 of the ICCPR also represents an acknowledgement that the international community would strive for the abolition of the death penalty.

This idea was taken further in the 1980s with the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. Signatories to that Protocol agree that the death penalty in their country is abolished and will remain abolished.****

However, despite this general (and growing) international opposition to the death penalty, it is still going strong in most states in the USA. Since 1977, when the US Supreme Court held in Coker v Georgia 433 US 584 (1977) that the death penalty was unconstitutional when imposed for the rape of an adult woman, it is probably only available for murder, and possibly only for first degree murder. The US Supreme Court has also placed other restrictions on the imposition of the death penalty, including holding that it cannot be imposed on “mentally retarded” people, it cannot be imposed on people who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes (although note that this has only been the case since 2005; before that, according to the US Supreme Court, 16 and above was perfectly ok – but some states permitted the penalty to be imposed only for 18 and above), and various procedural matters.

There are also many appeals about the facts of specific cases, a significant proportion of which are run by The Innocence Project, which focuses on the use of DNA evidence to try to exonerate people on death row.

There is a variety of issues surrounding the imposition of the death penalty, including whether it is appropriate at all; whether it is racist and/or classist (a huge proportion of people on death row are from disadvantaged backgrounds, and, in particular, many are African American, and the death penalty is more likely to be sought – and imposed – when the victim was White); whether the procedures relating to trials, imposition of the penalty and appeals are truly fair and just; whether it is economically viable or rational; whether the conditions on death row are humane (especially given the length of time people spend there between conviction and execution); whether what happens as people get close to execution (a time when frantic applications for stays and the like are often being made, and decisions often come in at the last minute) are humane; whether the methods of execution are humane, and so on.

Many of those issues come up in the Troy Davis case.

Troy Davis is Black. The man he was accused of killing was White, and a police officer.

Troy Davis was convicted entirely on witness testimony (ie as opposed to physical evidence), much of which has now been recanted (see also this Guardian article).

During the appellate process, a judge appeared to accept that there was some doubt, perhaps some reasonable doubt – but appeared to put some onus on the appellant to make “a truly persuasive showing of innocence.”*****

There’s not a lot of information about his representation at hearing, but put it this way: had he been well represented by counsel he was able to pay a lot of money to, it is statistically enormously unlikely that the death penalty would have been imposed.

In short, whatever you think of the death penalty in general, the execution of Troy Davis smells bad.

It smells of a society which bays for blood when one of its own – “its own” being a member of the privileged group – is killed, without regard to whether shedding that particular blood is fair, just or right.

This, to me, and, it appears, perhaps to others is not civilisation.

It seems pretty likely to me that Troy Davis will be executed in the next 24 hours. I hope I’m proved wrong. But whether or not he is executed, I hope that the support, both international and within the USA, that we have seen in this case, and in the Duane Buck case, and in others, contributes to the growing desire in the USA itself to investigate the death penalty and its use in that country.

Notes
* The idea of degrees of murder (ie “first degree murder” being the most serious and so on) is an invention of the USA, specifically, of Pennsylvania, according to this website. Although the joint heritage of USA and Australian law means that there are some significant similarities, this is not one of them: Australia does not, and has never had, degrees of murder. However, for a long time, it has been possible to recognise differential severities of particular instances of murder by imposing differential penalties.

** See the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties Background Paper [NB: link is pdf] – or here for a brief summary of the death penalty in Australia (and a link to the pdf above).

*** One of the USA’s explicit reservations to the ICCPR explicitly retains its right to impose the death penalty, including on persons who committed crimes when under the age of eighteen.

**** Australia was one of the first countries to sign up to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR.

***** Note that, in Australia, while I can conceive that an appellate court might make the same ultimate decision on the facts of the Troy Davis case, the phraseology would have to be completely different. As soon as an appellate court in Australia starts talking using words that suggest there would have been a real possibility of an acquittal, the chances of a finding that there was a miscarriage of justice (and so, that the appeal should succeed) increase enormously. It may simply be a cultural difference in relation to the words used, but I think it also reflects a broader cultural difference in relation to criminal procedure, especially in relation to the role of the jury in the two systems. That would be another whole blog post. Or ten.

Cross posted