Despite the efforts of Pope Benedict, former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Congressman Bob Barr (R) and former FBI Director William Sessions, Troy Davis (born October 9, 1968, time unknown) was put to death for the murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989. At the time transiting Saturn was sitting on his Sun.
Mr. Davis’s innocence was widely proclaimed, not only by his supporters but also by seven out of the nine witnesses that testified against him at trial. Mr. Davis’s case is not the only one where an innocent man has been put to death for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. The Innocence Project has a long list of convicted felons who were later exonerated, and here in North Carolina where I live the entire State Bureau of Investigation has been under investigation for errors ranging from incompetence to actual criminal behavior.
There are some interesting connections between the chart of Mr. Davis and the (Sibley) chart for the United States. The US chart contains an opposition between Saturn (testing and achievement) and Chiron (wounding and healing) that denotes the need of the nation to pay attention to the wounds that it inflicts on itself and others. Saturn sits in the tenth house of the US chart, the house of the governmental body, where the “body of law” (Saturn) becomes of paramount importance at the expense of the truth, which we see with the presence of Neptune (illusion) in the ninth house of truth and ideology.
Mr. Davis had an opposition of the Sun to Saturn, and his Sun sat on the Saturn of the US chart, with his Saturn sitting right on the US Chiron. Mr. Davis was a man of peace: Venus ruled both his Libra Sun and his Taurus Moon. He was likely extremely insecure with retrograde Saturn (self-doubt) opposite his Sun, and with retrograde Mercury (mind and communication) opposite retrograde Saturn he probably had difficulty in school, perhaps with learning disabilities.
Neptune (creativity and confusion) opposed his Moon which generally suggests a daydreamer, yet his Mars was in Virgo which tends to suggest an individual who is eager to serve and help others. Individuals with strong Neptune placements in the chart often find themselves scapegoats during their life since there tends to be confusion surrounding the personality.
There is nothing in Mr. Davis’s chart that would suggest violence or criminal behavior, but there is also nothing that would lead an astrologer to predict that he would end up in this kind of horrific situation. At the time of his arrest his progressed Mars was exactly conjunct progressed Pluto within nine minutes, an extremely tight conjunction, which could lead an astrologer to predict that something significant would soon occur that would involve dealing with issues of violence or power conflicts. In addition, his progressed Sun was in an exact quincunx to the lunar nodes, again suggesting that something big was likely to occur.
It appears that this event will have significant ramifications for the United States as a nation. If we look at the US (Sibley) chart at the time of Mr. Davis’s execution (September 21st, 2011 at 11:08 pm in Savannah Georgia), the ascendant of the execution chart sits right on the descendant of the US chart. The ascendant/descendant axis in a national chart has to do with the way the nation defines its identity (ascendant) through the way others are treated (descendant). The United States is in a 30-year Saturn Return cycle right now, and Saturn in the execution chart is exactly square to the transiting Moon which is in its own sign of Cancer, the sign of feeling and emotion, reflecting the desperation felt by Davis’s many supporters as they tried to stave off his impending murder.
This national acceptance of executing people for whom there is at least a reasonable doubt and despite DNA evidence that would exonerate them is a cancer on the soul of the nation that must be healed. I tend to try to take a broader view of these situations, and I do believe that sometimes individuals enter into a spiritual contract to become the face of a problem that needs to be witnessed, and perhaps this is the case of Mr. Troy Davis. I hope that his death is not then in vain, and that his growing numbers of supporters do not fall back asleep and avert their eyes when this happens again, as it almost surely will.
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Beautiful exposition, as always Lynn
Thanks gds!
Hi Lynn – I’ve always been very much opposed to the Death Penalty, even in the case of horrific crimes. And much as I hate the idea of an innocent man – even a violent one – being wrongly accused (let alone put to death), it serves no one, not even Troy Davis, to deny the role he played in the tragic events of that night.
Putting all other facts aside, Troy Davis never denied he was one of two men (one wearing a white shirt, the other in yellow) involved in the pistol whipping of a homeless man immediately preceding the murder of Officer MacPhail. Apparently the two friends (Davis and Sylvester Coles) assaulted the homeless man (Larry Young), after demanding that he give them a beer. When Young yelled for help, it was Officer MacPhail who attempted to come to his aid – regardless of which of the two friends committed the final act of violence, there’s never been any evidence to suggest that the friend who did *not* ever tried to intervene on behalf of either Officer MacPhail or Larry Young. It’s also worth noting (only in relation to this post) that in 1988, approximately a year before the murder conviction, Troy Davis pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon.
While none of this means Troy Davis was guilty of the murder (or the shooting that took place earlier in the evening), describing him as a “man of peace” seriously diminishes the role he played not only in the lives of those he interacted with that night, but also in the terrible turn his own life took as a result.
As we grieve the unnecessary loss of *two* lives, ultimately it’s only the truth that will allow us to heal. Do we need to change our system of justice? Absolutely. Was there compelling evidence to suggest reasonable doubt? Based on what I’ve read, I’d have to say yes – considering the contradictory testimonies on the part of the various witnesses involved in the case, we may never know for certain which of the two friends committed the murder. And whether Troy Davis was guilty or not, the loss of one innocent life doesn’t justify the taking of another – in the end, neither Troy Davis nor Officer MacPhail deserved to die. But until and unless we’re willing to take an honest look at the all of the contributing factors in complex situations such as these, we’ll never make much headway in terms of understanding and preventing them.
Hi LB, the question of the death penalty is a whole other issue that deserves serious attention and involves a spectrum of sacred cows that I suspect few of the more religious Americans are willing to sacrifice.
Thank you Lynn, great post. As an American working overseas, the news this week of Troy Davis’ execution really saddens me. Regardless of whether he admitted to beating a homeless guy – obviously a wrong thing to do – there was too much doubt about whether he killed Officer MacPhail. Also, even in cases where you have proven cold-blooded killings — and I address this to LB — let them spend the rest of their lives in jail. I think Davis’ execution will prove a catalyst for change – in what form remains to be seen.
The other aspect to this whole question of capital punishment (which fits perfectly into Pluto in Capricorn and transforming (Pluto) the societal structures (Capricorn) is why we put people into prison to begin with. Is it just for punishment? Or can people be rehabilitated? (I believe they can, and should be if society is to be healed and transformed.)
The Troy Davis case points out the fallacy of capital punishment as a necessary evil. The evil is in the execution (both literal and metaphorically). The “law” to kill becomes the trump over any pretense of justice. If we were to stipulate that a death penalty has its place to remove from society those we deem too dangerous to live, that would presuppose a system whereby only those clearly guilty of violence and deemed still dangerous would be executed. Instead, we have a system in which the fact of sentencing is the rationale for the state to murder. Yet, how much sense does it make, even for the stipulated rationale, to coldly, deliberately, with much forethought and notice, murder people who are clearly caught, incarcerated, and removed from violent impact on the rest of us? The death penalty is not about justice, or fear of violence, or even ultimately revenge. It is about a culture that worships death and human sacrifice.
I don’t believe some people can be rehabilitated. I believe some people are pretty much dark souls who are born evil. I speak from experience; my grandmother was a classic psychopath from age four. (Wasn’t around to know her at that age but from the time I did know her I can say it seems right to me).