After 22 years of trials, debate, and international controversy, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole executed Troy Davis for the murder of an off-duty policeman on Sept. 21,  2011 by lethal injection.

In 1989, Officer Mark McPhail was shot and killed as he attempted to break up a fight in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia. Witnesses identified Davis, a black man, as the shooter, and shell casings were linked to a separate shooting he was earlier convicted of.

Seven key witnesses, however, have since recanted their evidence and stated they were pressured by police into testifying against Troy Davis. Multiple jurors have expressed a change of opinion since the case was originally tried and support for Davis has grown public based on the possible confession of another man at the scene that night.

Davis, 42, has maintained his innocence since his 1991 conviction and fought the decision from every possible legal angle. However, after a four-hour delay for legal review, the Supreme Court denied a last-minute plea for execution extension.

Nearly one million people signed over 630,000 petitions for Davis’s freedom, and many public figures advocated for his cause, including 51 members of Congress, the NAACP, Amnesty International, ex-President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Martin Luther King III, P. Diddy, and Cee Lo Green. Vigils spread across Europe and the United States and demonstrators commonly used the saying “I am Troy Davis” to publicize his innocence. A shocking number of international protests gave his final execution date publicity, including one in Hong Kong and ten in France.

The four-hour delay was one of many in this case; Davis faced execution four times before Sept. 21.  In 2007, the board extended his stay as testimony changed and doubt surfaced as to his guilt. The Supreme Court stopped his execution in 2008, but never heard his case. Before his third execution date, his lawyer was able to win another extension. However, in 2010 the board announced multiple legal actions failed to win Davis clemency, and announced his final execution date to be Sept. 21 2011.

Davis himself, who was in good spirits as he spent his final hours with his family, told The New York Times “I will not stop fighting until I’ve taken my last breath,” and asked his supporters to continue the fight for every innocent person in his position.

“To us it’s a question of how we judge a person’s guilt. It makes us ask: what is the purpose of our judicial system?” history teacher Ms. Arena said. She plans to discuss the case when her class starts talking about the legal system, and what a court is supposed to judge. The same question is driving discussion about the case worldwide. How probable is guilt when evidence becomes circumstantial and questionable?

“The execution of Troy Davis is really horrific. The death penalty to me is a barbaric and unjust way of dealing with the ills of society, especially in this case where there was so much evidence he was innocent,” senior Jonah Lewis said.  “I don’t think we can continue to have our justice system work this way, there needs to be a nationwide discussion about injustice and prejudice within our ‘justice’ system.”

Social media sites set the story ablaze with discussion of both the Davis case and the various legal practices it involved. Protesters have called the case a reflection of modern-day racism and a shameful lesson on how far the US still needs to go to evaluate ‘justice’ in the eyes of the nation.

“It’s helping our society to reevaluate the way we pursue justice,” Ms. Arena said. Such a reflection will surely be interesting to follow in the future, now that Troy Davis and his supporters have questioned the true “justice” of the Western world.