The Hill News

Former President Jimmy Carter called the execution of death-row inmate Troy Davis "unjust and outdated" and said that the case shows that the country's practice of the death penalty should stop.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press on Thursday, Carter, a Georgia native, said that hopefully Davis's death "will spur us as a nation toward the total rejection of capital punishment."

Carter continued that "if one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated."

After the Supreme Court briefly considered a last-ditch effort by his attorneys to stay his sentencing,  Davis, who was convicted of murdering a Georgia police officer more than 20 years ago, was executed by lethal injection later on that night.

His trial received attention from the NAACP and other civil rights organizations who argued that due to questionable eviden! ce, Davis should not have been executed.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) penned a somber tweet earlier on Wednesday.

“Today, we are all Troy Anthony Davis. Tonight, a little piece of all of us will die,” Lewis tweeted.