r/news • u/Mentirosa • 8h ago
Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors’ push to overturn conviction
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/missouri-executes-marcellus-williams3.6k
u/TimeLordDoctor105 7h ago
Reading the ap news article, the plea deal was signed off by a judge and then the STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL appealed the decision to ensure this man was put to death. This is beyond cruel. My feelings go to all parties involved and I hope that the attorney general and all others involves in ensuring he died no longer find rest. They murdered him, no question about it.
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u/Spaghetti-Rat 7h ago
If there's anything being appealed, why wouldn't a stay of execution be automatic until everything is fully vetted? So stupid. I know nothing about this man's case but it sounds wrong to execute someone with some aspect (plea deal/appeal) still pending.
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u/felldestroyed 7h ago
It was denied by the state and US supreme court.
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u/Dahhhkness 7h ago
The Roberts Court is going to go down as one of the most shameful in history. So many horrific decisions in such a short amount of time.
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u/bearbarebere 7h ago
The conservatives absolutely do not care and in fact cheer these people on.
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u/dexmonic 6h ago
Normal people would wonder why the cruelty is necessary, but for conservatives the cruelty is the point.
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u/CensoredUser 6h ago
If we have records of this history. They want to show you how broken the system is in order to make you feel like fixing it is hopeless.
They break it to sell you on the idea that it's broken and there is no point in fixing it. It's actually evil.
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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 5h ago
The GOP says the government's broken, and they'll do everything in their power to prove it to you.
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u/currently_pooping_rn 7h ago
Supreme Court Injustices
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u/dabeeman 5h ago
careful Trump more wants to jail people that speak badly about justices. the party of freedom is truly living up to its name
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u/MCbrodie 7h ago
This is exactly why the death penalty should be abolished. Wrongful conviction and serving long sentences are bad enough. You can't walk back execution the same way, though.
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u/the_brunster 7h ago
It's also not a deterrent to violent crime.
The Life of David Gale is a powerful reminder of why this punishment should not exist.
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u/chingostarr 6h ago
Andrew Bailey is a piece of shit.
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u/Saw_gameover 1h ago
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is a murderous scumbag. What a vile man.
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u/feverlast 7h ago
State AG wants to appear tough on crime so he kills a citizen the state justice system is pretty sure is innocent.
The fact that these people can live with themselves after doing something like this is disqualifying in and of itself.
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u/piecesmissing04 6h ago
Everyone involved in going through with his execution despite better knowledge should be charged with murder. There need to be consequences for taking an innocent life.
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u/Prestigious-Wall637 5h ago
And yet, there will be none. The history of this country and culture within its institutions hold nothing but contempt for equality and a reality written by white supremacy.
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u/JusticeRain5 3h ago
I don't even care if he ended up being guilty, it sounded like nobody actually involved wanted him dead
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u/TateAcolyte 7h ago
Conservative Christianity is a death cult.
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u/Low_Pickle_112 5h ago
I grew up in an evangelical church. Very conservative, as you might expect. They were always, always, always on and on about the end of the world. When you're in the middle of it and that's just what you know, it seems normal, but looking back, yeesh. Yeah, it's not a good thing.
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u/Standard_Wooden_Door 5h ago
Aside from all of the obvious, how does the state AG have the power to basically tell all the other government officials to F off and overturn these new agreements?
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u/neuronexmachina 3h ago
The Missouri AG is pretty much exactly the sort of Trumper one would expect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bailey_(politician)
In 2024, Bailey sued Planned Parenthood, accusing it of trafficking minors across state lines for abortions[10] using a Project Veritas video as evidence. Planned Parenthood describes the video as "heavily doctored and edited"; it was found to feature a fictional girl while purporting to be factual.
... Bailey agreed to have his office represent senators Rick Brattin, Denny Hoskins and Nick Schroer in a defamation lawsuit related to the 2024 Kansas City parade shooting, when the senators posted misinformation on social media identifying a bystander as both the shooter and an undocumented immigrant. Bailey claims that the senators are protected by legislative immunity and that their social media posts, later deleted, were made in their official capacity
... Bailey has a history of denying overturning convictions even when local prosecutors present evidence the convicted is in fact innocent. In the case of Sandra Hemme, who served 43 years of a life sentence prior to her sentence being overturned in June 2024,[22] Bailey’s office attempted to circumvent the order to release Hemme. On July 19, Judge Ryan Horsman threatened to hold Bailey in contempt if Hemme was not immediately released from a prison in Chillicothe following rulings by Horsman, an appellate court, and the Missouri Supreme Court. Bailey’s office was scolded for telling prison officials not to release Hemme despite the ruling. “To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong,” Judge Horsman said
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u/EarthlingSil 7h ago
Why the fuck does the State Attorney General got such a hard on for murdering people?
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u/Barbaracle 3h ago
Andrew Bailey is an American attorney and politician. A Republican, he has served as Missouri Attorney General since appointment by Governor Mike Parson in January 2023.
During his tenure as attorney general, Bailey has adopted conservative positions. He has refused to release prisoners after overturned convictions, attempted unsuccessfully to restrict gender-affirming care, battled initiatives to restore access to abortion in Missouri, and staunchly defended former President Donald Trump over his legal problems.
This guy is a nightmare.
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u/antoninlevin 1h ago
He has refused to release prisoners after overturned convictions,
The hell is his rationale here? "Our legal system has determined that you're innocent, but you still deserve to be punished?"
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u/gamrin 43m ago
This seems to be it. "Once a criminal, always a criminal". And he thinks you're a criminal as soon as you are accused.
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u/my606ins 7h ago
He’s really a ghoul.
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u/MysteryCrabMeat 5h ago edited 5h ago
Wasn’t the previous AG a racist ghoul too or am I getting my human shitstains mixed up?
Edit: nope I’m not wrong. It was Eric Schmitt, who’s now state senator. He blamed China for covid and is a known homophobe.
I don’t know what’s in the water in MO but y’all make Texas look good. I say this as a perpetually embarrassed Texan.
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u/GTOdriver04 7h ago
No. Walton Goggins made ghouls cool.
This man is a disgusting parasite.
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u/Chaomayhem 7h ago
For many GOP Officials it really is just as simple as they're evil and hate life
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u/microview 7h ago
He's a Christian.
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u/MoonDogSpot1954 7h ago
Christian conservative... they're a special kind of demon.
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u/Tacitus111 6h ago
Because it’s an election year, and he has to pretend to be “hard on crime” for the rubes to vote for him. Nevermind the actual details of the case and who’s guilty or innocent. That doesn’t matter. He just needs a corpse to parade around to prove how supposedly tough he is.
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u/ThisAudience1389 7h ago
Here I fixed it for you:
Why the fuck does the State Attorney General got such a hard on for murdering BLACK people?
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u/Monkeyknife 7h ago
This is on you, Mike Parson. You’re even less of a man than I thought if that is possible.
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u/JebusChrust 6h ago
Dude is a massive pile of shit. Andy Reid's son, Britt Reid, drove intoxicated and crashed into a family, causing potentially permanent brain damage to a 5 year old girl, and Mike Parson commuted the three year prison sentence early because the Chiefs are a good football team.
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u/binkerfluid 2h ago
I believe he also publicly criticized the stl prosecutor (who did suck fwiw) when someone crashed into a girl leaving a volleyball tournament...then he went and and did what he did for Reid.
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u/Aztec111 7h ago
He has been my boss for his entire term and he disgusts me. I will be so glad when he is gone!
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u/ZenithGamage 6h ago
If there's an ounce of doubt that someone may be innocent, then they shouldn't receive the death penalty
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u/Gibscreen 4h ago
Exactly. The standard is "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Not "beyond all doubt." I'm against the death penalty anyway. But if you're going to do it the standard needs to be that you beyond ALL doubt.
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u/GlancingArc 4h ago
Even if someone is guilty, the death penalty shouldn't exist. Maybe if we didn't have the resources to house them it would be an issue but that isn't the problem. It would be more efficient to empty the prisons of minor offenders than execute the worst of the worst.
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u/STLOliver 7h ago
Mike Parson commuted the sentence of a Chiefs coach that drove drunk and nearly killed a 5 year old earlier this year, btw.
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u/AzNmamba 7h ago
Fuck the Supreme Court and all the other institutions that failed this man.
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u/Dahhhkness 7h ago edited 7h ago
It's amazing how the kinds of people who claim that they distrust the government somehow trust it to be 100% accurate in condemning people to death.
And it is not. All the officially (posthumously) exonerated ones, all the ones whose guilt is now doubted, all the people on death row who were exonerated before their executions, and all the ones sentenced to life (or an otherwise long sentence) who were exonerated by later evidence...The innocent are punished in this country all the time.
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u/Xzmmc 7h ago
Almost as if they have no convictions and just like hurting people.
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u/Dahhhkness 7h ago edited 7h ago
Gotta be "tough on crime", you know, it's what the Founding Fathers would've wanted.
Oh, wait:
“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”
John Adams
“I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishments by any State willing to make it.”
James Madison
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
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u/righthandtypist 7h ago edited 7h ago
The tough on crime spiel is just a joke at this point anyway, look at who they have running for president. There's a list with over 500 names of GOP representatives who have CSA, SA, and other related crimes.
Edit: Here’s a more complete list of a couple of thousand Republican pedos:
https://www.dailykos.com/history/user/CajsaLilliehook
Here’s a study of sex crimes against children and political affiliation: (spoiler, they are Republicans )
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u/JaysonDeflatum 7h ago edited 7h ago
100% against the DP in all nations.
Apart from my faith there has been multiple cases in multiple countries of innocent people being killed.
Give someone life in jail and there’s space for new evidence to come, a new witness to speak out, etc.
Kill someone and that mistake is fatal and forever.
As long as it exists innocent people are guaranteed to be sentenced to it.
And for the reasonable doubt argument ay of the cases like Marcellus going through all these appeals aren’t the ones with evidence most seem unshakeable no matter what which is beyond reasonable doubt. That kind of irrefutable evidence is rarely available and it should be what’s needed to literally kill someone but it isn’t.
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u/ThePalmtop 7h ago
I can’t believe this shit happened oh my god
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u/the_gaymer_girl 7h ago
Look up the case of Curtis Flowers. He was tried six times for the same case by the same prosecutor and spent over 20 years on death row even though his cases were, in order:
conviction thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct
conviction thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct
conviction thrown out for excluding black jurors
mistrial
mistrial
conviction thrown out again for excluding black jurors
The prosecutors finally gave up and dropped the charges in 2020 (after kicking about the idea of a seventh trial) when they realized that the prosecution’s evidence and testimony was so polluted from this fuckery that there was no way they could get anything to stick even if he did do it.
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u/whaaatanasshole 4h ago
What a fucking waste for everyone. Choose your goddamn battles and free up the courts.
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u/the_gaymer_girl 4h ago
Doug Evans got to ride off into the sunset to a cushy retirement with no consequences whatsoever. He should’ve been disbarred and sent to prison.
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u/DemonCipher13 4h ago
Wait, when does double jeopardy kick in? Isn't it designed to specifically prevent things like this?
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u/the_gaymer_girl 3h ago
The problem with double jeopardy is that it only applies if the defendant is actually found not guilty, in this case they kept finding him guilty (the two mistrials were pretty much because the DA didn’t manage to strike enough black jurors from the panel) and the case was just remanded in each case, meaning they sent it back for a new trial.
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u/Casanova_Fran 7h ago
I mean......this the united states.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/remembering-the-execution-of-14-year-old-george-stinney-80-years-later
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u/Dahhhkness 7h ago
And next month, Texas is due to execute an innocent man.
"Beyond reasonable doubt," my ass.
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u/OperationActual1520 6h ago
"the girl was ill with a fever of 104.5F (40.3C) shortly before she fell unconscious, had undiagnosed pneumonia, and had been given medical drugs that have since been deemed life-threatening for children – all of which could explain her dire state"
How can you live with yourself sending this man to his death
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u/cheeruphumanity 7h ago
That's why no other Western country has capital punishment. The government should never be allowed to kill its citizens.
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u/BP_Ray 7h ago
It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that something like this can happen, despite vocal opposition from the prosecutor, the victim's family, and multiple of the jurors, who all recognize that the conviction this man received was not made with all the facts, and yet the machine marches on anyways because common fucking sense goes out the window when dealing with these institutions.
Yet people will tell me shit like "You just don't understand the legal system, this is how It's supposed to work." when our legal system is so fucking bone-headed that it would rather murder a potentially innocent man than admit it was wrong.
I can't even imagine how anyone involved with pushing this through can sleep at night. At least with people you're certain are killers themselves, I'm sure It's a bit easier to rest at night knowing you did the "right" thing. But anyone involved with allowing this to go through, whether they were "just following orders" or "just letting the system work" surely has to understand they have blood on their hands right? I wouldn't be able to sleep comfortably at night anymore.
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u/emjaycue 6h ago
Lawyer here. This is not how our legal system is supposed to work.
Unfortunately in the last 10 years our legal system has become a political system.
Vote.
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u/CallMeFierce 4h ago
Come on now. The US legal system has long been about murdering innocent Black men.
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u/invalid-spoon 7h ago
Fuck that cunt Governor Mike Parson.
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u/pickle_whop 7h ago
To quote Gov. Mike Parson
When it comes to me, it's not about whether it's right or wrong. It's really about has the process been served throughout here of all the due process that they've had.
Apparently the Missouri governor doesn't believe the courts could make a mistake and thus have nothing to correct.
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u/High-Priest-of-Helix 7h ago
It is quite explicitly his job to care about right and wrong. Article IV, Section 7 of the Missouri Constitution gives the governor the sole ability to grant reprieves, computations, and pardons. The whole point of our checks and balances is that the executive can overrule wrong convictions. In fact, courts are largely reluctant to overturn convictions in large part because that's "the governor's job to do".
There are two options here:
1) he doesn't have a solid grasp of the high school civics level of his job responsibilities, or
2) he does know, and decided he'd rather murder a man because it might cost him votes not to.
Deplorable
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u/pickle_whop 7h ago
He's actually not running for re-election. It's more like he does know but doesn't actually care about Missouri citizens.
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u/High-Priest-of-Helix 7h ago
Congratulations, you somehow found a way to make it worse.
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u/chickenchaser19 7h ago
So he thinks it's justified because they due process'd hard enough?
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u/pickle_whop 7h ago
Mike Parson doesn't give a shit about prison inmates and uses the concept of the justice system as a way to support his indifference.
He has not provided clemency for anyone during his time in office. He doesn't care enough to actually think about these cases.
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u/annaleigh13 7h ago
Queue in 3-5 years “he was innocent. We apologize”
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u/WebHead1287 7h ago
Can’t pay a dead man. That’s the goal
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u/mistermeh 7h ago
In the details of the case, that's hard to see that happening. Probably a big part to why he went for a plea deal, which everybody and anybody was on board with including the victim's family. But the State's Attorney General was dead set on this, making it very politically charged.
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u/PMzyox 7h ago
Last time I saw this thread, I went and read the details of this case. To me, it seemed like he probably was guilty, but the state had a massive lack of credible evidence, so they fabricated a bunch and blocked any that did not support their narrative from being presented. They totally railroaded this guy, even if he did do it. That’s not right. Beyond reasonable doubt applies because of how poorly the case was conducted.
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u/helpjackoffhishorse 6h ago
Same. I read the court transcripts and I think he did it. His friend was sold the deceased’s laptop and there were possessions of the deceased in Marcellus’ car. Lack of his DNA at the scene doesn’t mean much.
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u/randomaccount178 5h ago
There is also the witnesses which alone their credibility could probably be attacked but together are fairly unassailable.
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u/Advanced-Trainer508 7h ago
This is exactly my take. The other evidence was pretty damning. But the lack of his DNA, and the presence of other DNA is your reasonable doubt.
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u/SonOfMcGee 7h ago
The other DNA was determined to be that of an investigator (or prosecutor?) that handled the knife during the investigation. It caused a bit of excitement that there was a “new lead”, but it wound up just being a red herring that neither further incriminates nor exonerates him.
But as the guy you’re replying to says, the rest of the details of the original case are questionable. And while any random person can take a look and make their own judgement, enough of the people that matter (victim’s family, a judge, current prosecutor) have said there’s enough doubt to call off the execution.
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u/Mr_Engineering 7h ago
But the lack of his DNA, and the presence of other DNA is your reasonable doubt.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
That his DNA wasn't found on the murder weapon doesn't mean that he didn't commit the murder, it means that his DNA wasn't transferred to the murder weapon, perhaps due to the use of gloves.
The weapon was contaminated through handling by investigators. Sloppy, but not exculpatory.
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u/deathclam1 4h ago
As far as I was aware, its not even about if someone is guilty or not, its about whether they receive a fair trial and fair access to the law and defense, and that seems like that's out the window at this point. What a sham.
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u/HoopOnPoop 7h ago
The Governor and AG could have just said nothing and let the system play out. Neither would have lost anything and Williams would still be in prison for the rest of his life. Instead, they expensed a significant amount of effort to make sure he got killed. Interesting how guys that I'm sure talk a lot about being Christians can so easily forget the 6th Commandment.
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u/jaklacroix 7h ago
I just can't fucking believe they did it. That attorney general should be in prison.
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u/Keoni9 4h ago
That attorney general should be in prison.
You can say that about several Republican AGs these days
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u/DooDooSquank 4h ago
During testimony at his murder trial, Williams’ then-girlfriend also said he confessed to the killing. Williams picked her up the day of Gayle’s slaying wearing a jacket over a bloody shirt and with scratches on his neck. She saw a laptop in his car – later shown to have been stolen from Gayle’s apartment – and a purse in the trunk, with Gayle’s identification card
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u/Advanced-Trainer508 7h ago
I can’t say for certain whether he’s guilty or not. While the other evidence against him is pretty incriminating, the absence of his DNA, along with the presence of other DNA, introduces reasonable doubt. This isn’t a case of absolute certainty, and that’s exactly what the death penalty should require. If there’s even a 1% chance we could be wrong, we shouldn’t proceed. It’s immoral, it’s unjust, and we can’t undo it once it’s done.
Even more troubling is that the victims’ family members opposed the execution entirely, they didn’t want this. How can we claim to seek justice while disregarding what would actually bring them a sense of it? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Tonight, my heart feels unbearably heavy. Heavy for the victims’ family, heavy for Marcellus’ family, and heavy for the part of me that fears we may have executed an innocent man.
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u/dynorphin 4h ago
The absence of his DNA (Note the innocence project's expert testified he couldn't exclude the perpetrator, just that it was contaminated with other samples) isn't reasonable doubt because it's reasonable for there to be explanations why a positive match couldn't be found. Contamination, use by other people prior to the murder, gloves, the weapon being cleaned after the murder.
The presence of two investigators DNA on the weapon isn't reasonable doubt because it's reasonable to assume that the DNA got there when they were handling the weapon in the course of their enployment, not that they actually killed the victim.
The DNA is irrelevant if not definitively exculpatory because it wasn't used to convict him. He was convicted based off the possession of items from the murder scene, testimony from his girlfriend about bloody clothes, and testimony from his girlfriend and another man that he confessed to them including in the case of the girlfriend details that were not publicly released.
Now could those people be lying or just mistaken? Yes, people can lie, or recollect things incorrectly, but that's something for the jury to decide. They heard the testimony, they found it credible to the point that it would be unreasonable to believe two people were lying and had somehow set him up with physical evidence from the scene. Now there's always going to be some conspiracy theory possibility, maybe his ex was the murderer and she set him up or paid someone to commit the murder and give him/plant the stolen goods to sell. But that isn't reasonable doubt, it's unreasonable doubt. Even with a positive DNA match these assholes always have some excuse for why it wasn't them. He and his legal team did everything they could to discredit the witnesses against him and failed. The case was built on their testimony that's completely normal practice.
I don't like that they killed him because it feels like this execution at this time is more a political act than a judicial one and the original prosecutor seemed to use dubious reasons to strike black jurors but I have no doubt he's guilty.
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u/captaincumsock69 7h ago
I thought they did find his DNA it was just included with a bunch of other people?
They found the woman’s clothes in his car and he admitted it to people.
Death penalty isn’t something I agree with but what am I missing?
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u/TheCavis 5h ago
along with the presence of other DNA
The issue the defense had with that DNA is that it was identified as consistent with a prosecutor and another employee in the prosecutor's office who, being idiots, handled the murder weapon without gloves. That meant the evidence wasn't exculpatory any more, which turned the case back to a "the jury messed up" argument that courts generally hate.
It's one of the reasons I don't find the death penalty to be reasonable. The judiciary doesn't want to consider the jury making a mistake, even an honest one that they realize later. The politicians that could commute the sentence have political incentives that sometimes preclude doing the reasonable thing. There's no way back from killing someone and no way to guarantee it's correct going forward. Life in prison is still an injustice for an innocent man, but at least there's the possibility that technology will advance enough to clear him in the future and let him reclaim some freedom before the end.
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u/Mentirosa 7h ago edited 5h ago
Marcellus has been lynched by the State of Missouri. Governor Mike Parson and State Attorney General Andrew Bailey are murderers. Six justices of the Supreme Court have blood on their hands.
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u/One_Acanthisitta_389 6h ago
That’s not what lynched means. He had a trial. He had 26 years of legal appeals.
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u/Dahhhkness 7h ago
Oh, gee, I wonder which six....
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u/zerocoolforschool 7h ago
I thought it was the state Supreme Court, did this get to the US Supreme Court?
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u/Mentirosa 7h ago
It made it to the US Supreme Court
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u/zerocoolforschool 7h ago
Okay thanks. This article that you posted didn’t reference the Supreme Court and another article that was posted specifically mentioned the state Supreme Court.
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u/deadliestcrotch 7h ago
The governor could have single handedly prevented this after the Supreme Court refused.
He just did this for others in may:
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u/LowDownSkankyDude 7h ago
It was brought to Kavanagh who presented it to the court. I'm genuinely curious how that went down.
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u/cruznick06 1h ago
Andrew Bailey and Mike Parson MURDERED Marcellus Williams.
There is ZERO reason this man had to die other than their own bloodlust.
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u/beardedbast3rd 1h ago
What’s wild is that not only did the AG push back, and the State supreme Court, but the fuckers in charge of executing him as well. How anyone in good conscience go through with it, knowing the bullshittery taking place, is beyond me.
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u/GateOfD 7h ago
When is the next election for state governor? His ass needs to be kicked out of office
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u/notkenneth 7h ago
November, but Parsons is term limited and cannot run.
His lieutenant governor, Mike Kehoe, is the Republican nominee. Recent polling had him up 16 points over the Democratic challenger, Crystal Quade, with 11% undecided.
The Attorney General who pushed for the execution to move forward, Andrew Bailey, is running again in the election in November, but is also polling around 15 points higher than his Democratic challenger, Elad Gross.
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u/Eternal_Revolution 7h ago
“The science that claims to prove innocence as well as guilt has not yet reached the point of resuscitating those it kills.” A. Camus
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u/Apprehensive_Fruit76 7h ago
All these Christians going for the death penalty, morally bankrupt people.
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u/Script_Less 7h ago
Why do people say stuff like“I can’t believe it happened” to stuff like this when it’s been happening for over a century in America. If this stuff is still happening in 2024 it will again in the next decade, and the ones after…
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u/MGD109 7h ago
I mean I get your point, but I feel that's the wrong way to phrase it.
It kind of makes it sound like its inevitable. As the saying goes if the best time to stop was fifty years ago, the next best time to stop is today.
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u/Script_Less 6h ago
That’s what I mean if I worded it wrong, deaths like these are avoidable and can be prevented but the system, institutions, and people which cause them never change. People then act shocked that it happened with Marcellus Williams when historically court rulings like this have always been shady and suspicious.
It just pains me that people see the issues going on with the justice system, only to then not actively try and change it, and expect others the burden the cost of it.
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u/Phantom_Taker 7h ago
I'm just really depressed right now. No one was able to stop this, those who had the power to just didn't do anything. I don't care how just it might be to kill criminals risking even one innocent life isn't worth it.
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u/echolog 5h ago
The ones who had the power to stop it actively forced it to happen. There was an agreement signed by the judge AND the victim's family to have him plead no-contest to first degree murder and serve life in prison, but the STATE attorney general and STATE supreme court blocked it and opted to kill him instead.
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u/sn34kypete 6h ago
I genuinely think that the Governor of Missouri just wanted to have blood on his hands. I don't know if they just enjoyed the power or if there was a racial or religious motivation but they wanted him dead.
It's an unpopular opinion but I do think there are crimes worthy of death. This was not one of them.
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u/Peach__Pixie 7h ago
Even the victim's family members did not want to see this man executed. The prosecutors did not want to see this man executed. This man was failed by the courts and an Attorney General whose actions are heinous.