Troy Davis is scheduled to die Monday.

No, let’s make that more accurate. On Monday, he is scheduled to be killed. There’s a difference.

A 7 p.m., according to the warrant signed by a judge, an executioner for the state of Georgia will pump him full of chemicals and Davis, 40, will die. This follows his conviction for the 1989 death of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah, Ga., police officer who was trying to break up a parking lot altercation when he was shot. More materially, it follows a decision earlier this month by the U.S. Supreme Court not to intervene in the case.

Davis is connected to the crime by no forensic evidence whatsoever. He stands convicted solely on the word of nine witnesses, seven of whom have since recanted. Two of the seven say they were intimidated into lying by police. Of the two who have not recanted, one is a man named Sylvester Coles, who is said by some witnesses to be the real shooter.

For many of you this is an old story. I’ve written about it before as have others. Luminaries such as Jimmy Carter and the pope have also spoken out on Davis’ behalf. For all the good that’s done. Barring some miracle in the space between my writing and your reading, Troy Davis will soon be put to death. And that is a travesty.

Understand: I oppose the death penalty for many reasons.

In the first place, it is biased by race: Offenders whose victims were white are statistically more likely to be put death than those whose victims were of some other race.

In the second place, it is biased by gender: Male offenders are statistically more likely to be put to death than females who commit similar crimes.

In the third place, it is biased by class: Those who can afford high-priced lawyers are statistically more likely to escape execution (paging O.J. Simpson) while those who can’t are more apt to wind up in the death house.

In the fourth place, it has no deterrent effect.

In the fifth place, it is more expensive than the alternative: Life in prison without parole.

In the sixth place, it is wrong – and not just wrong, but crude, cruel and immoral. No government should arrogate unto itself the right to put its citizens to death.

But you know what? Put all those reasons aside. Pretend they don’t exist. Because the thing that troubles me more than all of them combined, the thing that makes Davis’ pending execution an abomination, is the simple possibility, indeed, the likelihood, that we will get it, have already gotten it, flat-out wrong.

Who can doubt? There are few things less perfect than human beings, after all, yet that’s what is required for anyone to feel even marginally sanguine about this custom of state-sponsored death: perfection. We need to believe that in this most somber of endeavors, unlike in all others, human beings will somehow magically make no mistakes, get everything right, be flawless.

I would not wager the change in my sofa cushions on the ability of government to spell my name without error. Yet day after day, we blithely wager the lives of other people on the ability of government to administer justice without error.

It’s a delusion that does not bear scrutiny; if you look too closely, the facade cracks and you are forced to ponder what’s being done in your name. So most of us will, I expect, look the other way, think not too long upon it, if Troy Davis is put to death, proclamations of innocence on his lips as they have been for almost 20 years.

Maybe you’re telling yourself, Pitts has no idea whether Davis is innocent or not. Well, you’re right. I don’t know, you don’t know.

And that’s the point.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald. His e-mail address is: [email protected]. Leonard Pitts will be chatting with readers every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT on www.MiamiHerald.com.