Late Wednesday night, after a final rejection of his appeals by a unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court, Troy Davis was executed by the State of Georgia for the murder of an off duty police officer 22 years ago in Savannah.

Davis was found guilty by a jury of his peers in 1991. He appealed this decision through every authority that he could, with even the United States Supreme Court ordering the evidence be revisited, but in the end each group upheld his original conviction.

Davis’s execution had been stopped three times since 2007.

During that time Davis gained the support of the Pope, Jimmy Carter and the noted publicity seeker Al Sharpton.

We have read stories that Davis’s death would bring peace to the family of the policeman who was killed. We doubt that there will ever be peace in either Davis’s family or the policeman’s family.

Davis paid the ultimate penalty for his crime — a crime that no one ever disproved that he committed

We have a problem with the Davis case and with the many other cases like his and a system that allows convicted murders to linger for 20 or 30 years in order to drag out an already overburdened court system.

If we are going to have capital punishment in this country, it should be brought about in a swift and humane manner. Maybe then the families of both parties would not have to endure the endless torment that carries on from year to year. We think letting the families suffer is more inhumane than putting a murderer to death.