A few years back, there was a TV show called “In the Heat of the Night.” It was a spin-off of the movie by the same name. The series starred Carroll O'Connor as Chief William O. 'Bill' Gillespie and Howard E. Rollins Jr. as Chief of Detectives Virgil Tibbs.
The events of last week (the execution of Troy Davis) have unsettled me in a way I did not think was possible.
In one of the shows entitled; “A Trip Upstate” (1989) George Brownlow sends word to Bill Gillespie that he wants to see the Chief at Parchman prison on the day of his execution. George was the driver in a bank holdup. Two bank robbers killed a guard and a customer before Bill killed them in return. As an accomplice, George was sentenced to die.