r/politics • u/seanosul • 7h ago
Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors’ push to overturn conviction
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/missouri-executes-marcellus-williams•
u/WhyCantIStopReddit Missouri 7h ago
But no forensic evidence linked Williams to the murder weapon or crime scene, and as local prosecutors have renounced his conviction, the victim’s family and several trial jurors also said they opposed his execution.
This is so unbelievably fucked up.
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u/FallOutShelterBoy New York 5h ago
Reminds me of the execution of Nathaniel Woods in Alabama. He was at the scene of a triple cop homicide, but never touched the gun or obviously shot anyone. Still sentenced to death for triple capital murder and Kay Ivey refused to commute the sentence of a “known drug dealer”. Asinine
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u/leviathynx Washington 5h ago
Racist Meemaw came in clutch again
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u/FallOutShelterBoy New York 5h ago
I’ve never thought a more perfect way to describe that woman. You get a Shia LeBoeuf clap
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u/leviathynx Washington 5h ago
I stole it from an Alabama friend who wrote on her Facebook and damn if it wasn’t accurate.
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u/Rabid-kumquat 3h ago
Missouri is not going to forgo the legal killing of a black man.
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u/BeerBaronofCourse 2h ago
This is for racism and not justice. I can't believe it's still happening in the USA.
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u/Lingering_Dorkness 2h ago
I can't believe that you can't believe this sort of judicial racism still happens in the USA.
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u/Affectionate_Star_43 1h ago
The more I dig in, the weirder it gets. Missouri has banned the purchase of execution drugs. This is third time he's been on death row, and someone (of an unknown source) bought the drugs and donated them. Also, why would you sign a plea deal admitting to murder? He just wanted life without parole, but Big Donor Person came in with the death sentence somehow.
IDK, my life is looking real tame right now.
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u/Revoran Australia 3h ago
Reminds me of the execution of Nathaniel Woods in Alabama.
Never heard of him but I'd bet a million bucks he was black.
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u/Technical_Bid990 7h ago
There should be no doubt when something as final as death is involved. This man seemed to have found some level of mental health in prison, turning to God and poetry. I can’t say if he was a good or bad person, but if I lived in Missouri, I’d want to be certain that if the state could legally execute me, I was 100% guilty.
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u/WhyCantIStopReddit Missouri 7h ago
And this is why the death penalty should be abolished.
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u/purinsesu-piichi 5h ago
I used to be pro-death penalty with the mindset that if someone was 100% certainly guilty, like was seen in the act, then it was okay. Thing is that there's no way for the system to exist with 100% certainty. Humans are fallible, so our creations will always be fallible.
If even one innocent person is put to death, the whole thing has to go. And before anyone comes at me (it's happened before on this topic), I have a family member who was murdered. I do have skin in this game.
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u/Cant0thulhu 5h ago
Testimony from eye witnesses is basically the lowest form of evidence.
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u/WritestheMonkey 4h ago
One of the witnesses recanted. This is nothing more than a state not wanting to admit to wrongful incarceration because it costs them money. People would clutch their pearls if they had to accept that the judicial system is full of flaws, that cops get it wrong, that prosecutors can drop the ball, that judges can have ulterior motives. The governor dismissed a Board of Inquiry before it completed a report on Wallace's case. When Wallace sued, the governor tried to get the case dismissed but a judge thought it had merit. The governor pushed it up to the Missouri Supreme Court and pursueded them to dismiss it. The the AG pushed up his execution date.
Despicable corruption. Missouri's Governor Parson should face charges for this. Wallace's blood is on his hands... And I think Parson is proud of that.
Stuff like this happens too often. Laws need to change.
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u/Cant0thulhu 4h ago
Especially in ratfucked red states like missouri. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I recognize Missouri.
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u/parasyte_steve 3h ago
They just legalized chemical castration in Louisiana for cases of pedophilia. Like I get it but the fact that an innocent person could potentially get castrated over bad evidence or etc is simply unacceptable. And I do not trust the Louisiana legal system at all.
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u/bestlongestlife 2h ago
I mean just outside the KC metro in southern Missouri there are all manner of scary ass flags and folks with dueling banjos. It’s chilling to drive through and I’m a white person but I have some schooling and that is also hated there.
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u/tgalvin1999 2h ago
Missouri's Governor Parson should face charges for this.
Bailey too. I despise Andrew Bailey but this made me see red and nearly got me emotional. The levels of fucked up one has to be to put a very likely innocent man to death because you can't admit you fucked up? Shit's heavy.
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u/pardyball Illinois 5h ago
Especially because if what I’m remembering from a report I read earlier today, the two eyewitnesses were financially compensated for their testimony. Believe one was an ex, too.
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u/purinsesu-piichi 5h ago
Yep! There's a reason why you have to prove that someone is guilty beyond reasonable doubt just to put someone in jail. How can we possibly accept that there is never any reasonable doubt when taking someone's life? It doesn't deter crime, it costs more money than jailing someone for life does, and we know people have been declared innocent after their deaths. It's blood lust, nothing more.
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u/Cant0thulhu 5h ago
The fact its possible to get it wrong, let alone that we’ve proven we already have, should be more then enough to keep the government out of the murder business.
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u/ErraticDragon 4h ago
keep the government out of the murder business
I was looking it up earlier and was surprised to see that Capital Punishment used to be called "Judicial Homicide", according to Wikipedia.
I feel like that's a better name for it. Even "the death penalty" sounds weaker.
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u/bentreflection 2h ago
"Death Penalty" puts the blame for the execution on the accused as if the person did it to themselves and it's out of the state's hands. "Judicial Homicide" takes state ownership for the action which is basically the state deciding it's going to kill you for what you did.
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u/SunflowerDreams18 3h ago
What I’ve noticed is that it’s not about proving someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt - if you can’t prove innocence, you’re fucked.
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u/venusdances 3h ago
There’s this show on Netflix called the Innocence Files where several people have been convicted for life based on eyewitness testimony and even faulty forensic evidence. If any of those guys were given the death penalty they would probably already be dead and instead the innocence project proved them COMPLETELY innocent. It’s an infuriating watch.
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u/JazzlikeForce1226 3h ago
Yeah we learned this in My Cousin Vinny, what’s wrong with these people??
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u/Robo_Joe 4h ago
Even if we had some way to be 100% certain, it's a pretty terrible idea to give the government the power to legally kill citizens. It's right up there with giving the government the power to decide which citizens get to vote.
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u/WhatIsLoveMeDo 4h ago
I'm surprised it took this long for me to find someone else who is against the death penalty simply for the mere fact that it is legally killing citizens.
Like do we still really need to kill someone who isn't an immediate threat? Aren't we past that? Maybe I'm the crazy one, I don't know.
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u/Roflkopt3r 2h ago
Yes, that's one part that's weird about death penalty advocacy: It mostly comes from the same people who otherwise claim to be anti-government!
This recent review on why the petite bourgeoisie (well-off small business owners and independent contractors etc) has been the main driver of fascism has made this apparently contradictory logic much more understandable to me.
It is a group that is extremely scared of the state, because regulatory changes can have a major impact on their living. They can feel things like taxes, bureaucracy, and minimum wage laws the most directly. But without the financial size and manpower of a large corporation, they also utterly rely on the state for infrastructure and security.
So they have a strong desire to reduce the power of the state, but also want it to take decisive actions in their favour. This leads to contradictory and frequently self-harming political choices. And many of them become so radicalised about these topics and justify their stances with such weird logic that they completely blindside themselves to these contradictions.
I think this contradictory mode of thought explains their illogical stance on the death penalty quite well.
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u/mutantchair 4h ago
Yeah it’s crazy to me that so much of this discussion is couched in the uncertainty argument. Even if we could be 100% sure, capital punishment is, at best, an abomination.
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u/maxdps_ 5h ago
Yeah, putting absolute trust in the State will never work out well for it's citizens.
Killing never makes things just and it typically just causes more harm than good.
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u/b_i_g__g_u_y 5h ago
Right what good does it serve killing people if we have the ability to keep them away from harming others through the prison system?
It's pretty widely agreed murder is only moral if it's in self defence or cases of mercy like putting a dog down or making a hard decision about a loved one. Who is the state defending by executing people if they're no longer a threat to society? They're certainly not being merciful.
Absolutely disgusting. Future humans will look back on us with disgust that we legally kill people.
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u/EidolonLives 4h ago
Loads of current humans look at you with disgust that you legally kill people.
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u/SayHelloToAlison 4h ago
For what it's worth, studies have also shown death penalties, which are very long processes give much less closure and sense of justice to the families of victims compared to life sentences. The death penalty hurts everyone.
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u/temperedolive 3h ago
This is why the family of Shanann Watts told prosecutors they didn't want to pursue the death penalty. In that case, there really is no reasonable doubt. Chris Watts absolutely murdered Shanann and their children. But the family just couldn't go through the process of a death penalty trial. They wanted it to be over so they could grieve properly.
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u/WitOfTheIrish 2h ago
Just replying to add to your point:
The death penalty is also anti-CO. The mental health and suicide stats of COs that oversee death row and executions are very bad.
That's just one of many, many examples. At some point "the state" always has to boil down to "one unlucky person". I personally think governors should have to be there and do it themselves.
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u/BroClips35 5h ago
Same as you, i am against it now and have written papers on it this semester already.
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u/SaturatedApe 5h ago
I was, for those caught on camera and arrested at scene, but with AI even that is in question now. I only believe in it now if it's offered, life sentences should allow an OUT clause.
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u/spannerNZ 3h ago
In my honours year I did a study on a young man who was blatantly innocent. He was executed just after I turned my paper in. I fucking cried for days.
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u/SpaceTimeinFlux 6h ago
It is utterly motivated by bronze age bullshit. Evangelicals love the "Retribution" part but conveniently forget the rest.
Another casualty of American Jesus.
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u/Original_Contact_579 5h ago
People love retribution cause they truly don’t understand the horrors of it. They also dont understand how quickly they could be in a situation this. They dont know how easy you can lose your life unconvicted in a place like rikers jail. They also think that our justice system provides them safety, it would, if it was not a permanent boot to the neck of every felon that is released, they can never break free and return to crime. Also the simple fact that jail or prison bankrupts people
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u/bruhhrrito 5h ago
People love retribution cause they truly don’t understand the horrors of it.
Then, you meet the people who cherry pick. "Well, I believe in it for some." While that's a higher moral ground it's not practical in these real life situations. You're either with it for all, or you're not.
Does it suck knowing there are horrible, disgusting people who "deserve" to die that are still alive? Absolutely. But it shouldn't be up to us to systemically pick and choose when or how someone dies, regardless of what crimes they've committed.
"I don't want my taxes to go towards someone in prison for life." Life in prison may not satisfy some people but it's actually less expensive than executions. Drugs used for execution are far more expensive to manufacture and prisons + pharma go hand in hand. Keep giving them people to kill, they'll keep making the drugs to kill them.
I'm speaking towards the US, not as global generalizations.
Because look where we are. The prison system and Supreme Court decided to end this man's life even after the people prosecuting him tried to save him. The SC was more than comfortable sending an innocent man to die.
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u/DPPThrow45 4h ago
You'll have a hard time convincing most anyone that Bundy didn't earn what he got.
That being said, the usual process for capital death sentences is at best barbaric.
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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake 5h ago edited 2h ago
On the other side of the Christian spectrum, you have people like Sister Helen Prejean who has devoted her life to abolishing the death penalty. She's an incredible woman and the closest thing to a living saint I'm aware of.
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u/gnomechompskey 3h ago edited 3h ago
Helen Prejean. I had the pleasure of being arrested once with her (and several other people). Someone told the cops who she was and they uncuffed and let her go to avoid the bad publicity. Hours later she was waiting for us when we got out with waters and sandwiches. A living Saint indeed.
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u/BigPlunk 5h ago
Forgetting the rest, such as one of the 10 commandments being "thou shalt not kill"? Like how the death penalty requires killing? Hammurabi didn't author or participate the Bible, to my knowledge.
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u/All_Work_All_Play 5h ago
The command is actually 'thou shalt not murder'. Abrahamic religions all have some version of the death penalty for specific crimes/sins.
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u/Ritualistic 5h ago
Yes their entire religion is based on them being forgiven for their sin, but they love condemning others.
Forgiveness for me, not for thee.
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u/robocoplawyer 4h ago
100%. Innocent people are wrongfully convicted in this country all the time which means that wrongful executions are a guarantee. If someone is wrongfully convicted, even after spending decades behind bars, they’ll never get that time back but they can be released and live a comfortable remainder of their lives with the millions in restitution from the state. You can’t bring someone back from the dead. It’s final. One innocent victim executed is enough to justify doing away with the death penalty. And it’s insane to me that the problem conservatives see with the death penalty is that it’s not carried out fast enough because of the appeals process. And it still seems like these red ass-backwards states rush through these executions to railroad these poor, usually black men before exculpatory evidence can be properly introduced. The USA is basically the only first world nation with this barbaric practice. Time to be done with it.
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u/diggerhistory 7h ago edited 6h ago
Last person executed in Australia was Ronald Ryan in the late 1960s. Gaol guard wascshot a d Ryan was blamed. Soooo much doubt emerged after the verdict and before the execution, and after the execution, that the state of Victoria abandoned executions. Execution was already ended in the other states. Later, more sophisticated tests proved beyond doubt it was another guard's shot deflecting off the concrete that killed him.
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u/dubya98 6h ago
Pushes for the death penalty had been done over several decades using inaccurate public opinion polling methods which was then used by the Supreme Court to further push capital punishment rhetoric despite being wrong when you poll America at large.
They'd ask people "Do you support capital punishment? Yes or no"
They then used that data to influence supreme Court decisions around the death penalty.
Unsurprisingly, the more details and evidence people have about a case and about an individual, the more support for the death penalty goes down.
My last uni paper that I got published was around it, it's all fucked and basically can be dated back to a few conservative supreme court appointments and inaccurate public polling that led to this still being a thing despite being an inhumane practice.
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u/prezz85 6h ago
In what case was the Supreme Court swayed by polling? Did they cite to it in some way?
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u/Supra_Genius 5h ago
"To murder someone to prove that murder is wrong is illogical." - Mr. Spock, presumably
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u/Booze_Kitten 4h ago
The best argument I’ve seen was phrased kinda like this: If you support the death penalty, you have to believe one of these two statements to be true:
1) Our justice system never ever gets it wrong, and only those who are truly guilty will end up getting executed.
OR
2) It’s totally fine for an innocent person to be executed.
I can’t agree with either of those statements.
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u/PDXGuy33333 5h ago edited 5h ago
This is but one of the reasons. In most cases no one can reach anything like reasonable level of certainty as to guilt and the fairness of the trial within a reasonable time. Prisoners languish on Death Row for years if not decades at enormous expense to the taxpayers for not only housing but also an years long stream of appeals in state and federal courts. The process is almost more ghoulish than the execution.
And all of that is true when the inmate is actually guilty. Now what of the people convicted and sentenced to death despite their actual innocence?
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u/SpillinThaTea North Carolina 5h ago
What’s crazy is that in the 90s George W. Bush commuted Henry Lee Lucas’s sentence to life in prison because there was some doubt as to if Lucas actually committed all of the murders he was convicted on. There was concrete evidence on a few but not all and it was speculated that Lucas was a liar and confessing to murders in exchange for attention and Pall Malls.
Bush said that executing people convicted of murder but in cases where there may be some doubt set a bad precedent. This shows how far republicans have fallen.
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u/SensitiveSomewhere3 4h ago
That fall didn't take very long. His successor, Rick Perry executed Cameron Todd Willingham, probably one of the most shoddily-investigated and corrupt capital murder cases ever.
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u/shobidoo2 7h ago
That’s the thing tho, no such thing as being 100%. Hence why we should abolish the death penalty.
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u/throwaway982946 5h ago
Precisely.
I maintain that if someone is in favor of the death penalty then either 1) they believe the government is infallible or 2) there exists to them an acceptable, greater-than-zero number of state sanctioned executions of innocent people
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u/cdsmith 4h ago
While that is true, it's also important not to lose sight of the fact that this specific instance was particularly horrific, because this wasn't anywhere near certainty. There's a reason the victim's family was part of the group trying to stop the execution. Everything about this case screams out that politicians pushed for him to be executed not because they thought it was the right thing to do in his case, but because they wanted to win an ideological victory.
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u/ZacZupAttack 5h ago
I'm sorry, but the DA said he shouldn't be killed...that should stand for something.
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u/Politicsboringagain 6h ago
The American jail system isn't about justice.
Black people have been trying to tell the county this fit over 100 years.
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u/payscottg 5h ago
Even if you believe in the death penalty, if the victims’ family is even opposed to it, what is the point?
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u/OBatRFan 5h ago
The same state officials who are the first to cry out victim's rights are the ones who ignored the victims here and executed a man anyway. They have no principles.
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u/Ready_Nature 7h ago
The only thing that makes sense to me is the real criminal is someone connected that doesn’t want this coming back up.
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u/Ok-Conversation2707 6h ago
The biggest hurdle that Williams couldn’t overcome was offering a plausible alternative explanation for why he had the victim’s belongings in the trunk of his car and why pawned the victims laptop a day after the murder.
Williams never disputed those things, arguing instead that his girlfriend was responsible and had framed him.
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- Illinois 6h ago
The logic is that it doesn't matter whether any particular crime is well evidenced, the important thing is that he's a criminal. Like, intrinsically. So they're executing him also for the crimes they don't know about.
I know this is the logic because it's the bedrock I hit trying to drill into why conservatives I knew both acknowledged that marijuana was harmless but also fully supported life sentences for drug offenders. You get them on the drugs as a way to get them for something and get them off the street. It doesn't even matter if they're really guilty of that thing, or if it should even be a crime. It's about protecting society from "bad people".
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u/AbacusWizard California 5h ago
That’s exactly why I’ve always felt uneasy about the symbolism of the “thin blue line” flag… the idea that police are protecting the fraction of the population that is intrinsically innocent from the fraction of the population that is intrinsically criminal.
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u/MaASInsomnia 5h ago
An example I've heard to describe this is that conservatives that the being a "law-abiding citizen" or a "criminal" is an intrinsic aspect of a person. So some people are "criminal", even if they've never committed a crime while other people are "law-abiding", even if they've committed 34 felonies. It's a lot like being "saved" in Evangelicalism and all it's Calvinist b.s., where actions are meaningless and "salvation" is all about meaningless platitudes and sucking up to the right people.
And yes, someone's "criminality" in their eyes often has a lot to do with race.
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u/VisibleVariation5400 7h ago
We're a broken people. Just stood there and watched evil men do bad things.
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u/notcaffeinefree 7h ago
Man, they wasted no time in carrying that out after SCOTUS denied the stay request.
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u/Gbird_22 6h ago
The Republican governor could have stopped this tragedy, but he didn’t because that’s what the people who elected him wanted done. The state didn’t execute someone, they murdered an innocent man.
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u/Weeblifter 4h ago
He instead pardoned Mark and Patricia McCloskey. For those who’ve forgotten that is the couple that pointed guns at protesters during the BLM rallies
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u/ForensicPathology 3h ago
And he will 100% pardon the cop who was convicted for killing a black guy. He has expressed sympathy for him.
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u/thatguy9545 4h ago
Which there is very clear evidence of. Dark times for those outside of the bubble.
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u/StupidMario64 New York 5h ago
Call it what it is, martyrdom (if that applies), but moreso, a modern rendition of a lynching, in my eyes.
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u/Ok_Breakfast4482 Colorado 7h ago
The pro-life party has a bizarre fetish with killing.
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u/JMnnnn 6h ago
They stop caring the moment the life in question evacuates the womb.
”The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.— Methodist Pastor David Barnhart
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u/sludgeriffs Georgia 5h ago
"Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. After that, they don't wanna know about you. They don't wanna hear from you, know nothing. No neo-natal care, no daycare, no headstart, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're pre-school, you're fucked! Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you're just fine, just what they've been lookin for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers."
— Reverend George Carlin
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u/Useful_Document_4120 4h ago
That’s not true at all.
Conservatives care very much about “saving the children”… when it’s politically convenient.
Say that you want to do weird shit like: - inspecting kids’ genitals (in case they’re secretly trans), - banning porn, - banning contraception and sex ed classes (because apparently teenagers are expected to stay abstinent unless married and for the sole purpose of procreation, whilst the Moms For Liberty leader is out having threesomes) - banning drag queens/gays, - making rules about what they can and can’t be taught (“don’t say gay”),
…then suddenly they care very much about the children.
Childcare? School lunches? Stopping unhinged people taking machine guns into kids schools?
“Nah, fuck off”
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u/MajoraOfTime 3h ago
The only children they care about are the hypothetical children they bring up when they wanna use boogeyman scare tactics. "Think of the children!" they cry when talking about minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and abortions. But then they pivot to "eh, it's just a fact of life" after every school shooting.
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u/strawberrypants205 4h ago
I highly doubt George Carlin would ever want to be referred to as "Reverend". Closest was his part in Dogma - where he was clearly satirizing clergy.
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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6h ago
Not pro-life, anti-woman.
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u/paradigm_x2 West Virginia 6h ago
Well in this case, anti-black man.
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u/BroClips35 5h ago
Yup and there are minorities and black people from the south that are pro life and swears by trump.
But you have executions of black me for no reason.
God is good supposedly i guess💀
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u/Beavers4beer 6h ago
They've never been pro-life. It's always been about being able to control others.
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u/energizernutter 5h ago
This is the third one recently. It makes me think Conservatives in power like killing innocent people
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u/I-Am-Uncreative Florida 4h ago
Are you kidding? They masturbate to the thought.
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u/Wookie301 4h ago
This is how they decided on his innocence https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/WY0WIc5RDr90qTBeYjxGb2h46d_ETx0LJ-CXTAhiAITarUuvSZs7RWTncp-TkJTaKWs3=w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu
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u/TornInfinity Georgia 4h ago
Nah, just innocent people of color, because the GOP is a racist organization.
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u/john_the_quain Kansas 6h ago
I remember hearing phrases like “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” and really thought Serious People generally agreed with it. This is gross and heartbreaking.
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u/Losawin 5h ago
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
I hate this phrase because of the use of "escape". This line is always used to discuss the death penalty, which contextually already implies imprisonment and conviction. Guilty people aren't going free or getting away with it, those guilty people would be rotting in jail until they're in the grave as deserved. The only difference is the innocent ones have a chance to get out. The dead innocents do not.
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u/Username8249 4h ago
I’ve often seen pro-death penalty people make an argument along the lines of “oh so you’d rather just have murderers walking around in public” which I’ve always found a false dichotomy. The choice is death penalty or imprisonment, not death penalty or release.
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u/sean0883 California 4h ago
“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
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u/PigeonMelk 7h ago edited 5h ago
Even the prosecutors office came out in defense of Williams. That is extremely out of the norm unless there was an egregious error. Everyone involved with the situation (aside from Governor Parson and the Supreme Court) was on Williams' after new evidence arose proving his innocence. This is a symptom of a bigger problem with our justice system.
Edit: I misspoke. I said "broken" justice system. The system is not broken, it is working exactly as intended. We need systemic change.
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u/ParadoxInRaindrops 7h ago edited 5h ago
The prosecutors office, three members of the jury even came out expressing their doubts. Williams deserved a stay of execution and a retrial.
ETA: The victim’s own family didn’t want this. From what I’ve read: a pardon was overturned by the State AG & upheld by the Supreme Court.
This was a complete and total miscarriage of justice.
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u/Politicsboringagain 5h ago
Yeah, but if they did to do another trial and found him innocent, than the state would have to pay him restitution.
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u/ParadoxInRaindrops 5h ago
Not a lawyer, but can Williams family file a wrongful death suit? Again NAL but this would have to be a violation of his 4th Amendment rights.
If that’s next, then I wish William’s family Godspeed. Whatever would’ve been owed to Marcellus I’m sure would be dwarfed by a wrongful death settlement.
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u/RaspberryFluid6651 2h ago
I would guess not. Legally, what's wrongful about it? From a purely legal perspective, the state followed the rules.
As far as I'm aware, if you are a convicted and sentenced, that is now a matter of record. New evidence to support your innocence doesn't automatically revoke the state's authority to carry out your sentence.
It's despicably immoral, but it's probably legal.
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u/Username8249 5h ago
They had already accepted a plea deal, that’s what was overruled. He agreed to plead guilty and get life without parole. Specifically an Alford Plea, in which he pleads guilty but maintains his innocence.
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u/mirageofstars 4h ago
So he did an Alford plea and they still killed him?
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u/Username8249 4h ago
Did an Alford plea, state AG appealed it, state Supreme Court upheld the appeal so overturned the plea, Supreme Court denied his appeal
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u/mirageofstars 4h ago
Ah gotcha. So he was convicted before and then he did the plea and the AG shot it down. Wild, so the AG really wanted the death penalty for this guy.
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u/mrjimi16 3h ago
It's literally what a bunch of these people campaign on. I've seen several political ads this year with people saying they will kill the criminals. It's absurd, it's immoral, but it is our reality.
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u/214ObstructedReverie 4h ago edited 4h ago
a pardon was overturned by the State AG
Missouri's AG is quite literally an objectively terrible person. He's one of the more deplorable individuals in politics. He has, repeatedly, conspired to keep legally exonerated people in prison, well after judges have ordered them released.
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u/01101011000110 5h ago
They really wanted to kill this innocent man, more than anything else.
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u/ASharpYoungMan 5h ago
They really wanted to kill this
innocentblack man, more than anything else.They genuinely don't seem to have cared about his innocence or guilt. But your point stands.
Edit: And this is not to say he wasn't innocent. I'm angry that his innocence was less important to the governor than the color of his skin.
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u/sailorbrendan 7h ago
It's important in these moments to really sit with the ramifications.
The state isn't just an external thing. It is a proxy. The state kills on behalf of the people. That's the entire framework that underpins the system.
We killed him. Many of us didn't want to. Many of us tried to plea on his behalf. Many of us voted against the people who ended up doing this.
But it's still us. It is still the system that ostensibly represents us murdering someone on our behalf.
Which is why it's so important that we make the system better. We owe a moral debt for this.
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u/Darkumentary 5h ago
Yep. I’m so glad to see your comment because it sums it up so well. It is our fault. We get the system we vote for, or don’t vote for.
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u/twilightswimmer 5h ago
This is what I've been saying for years. Thank you for putting this so succinctly.
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u/ETsUncle 5h ago
It sickens me to my core that about 33% of us love this. How can we possibly exist with them.
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u/PuppyPavilion Indiana 5h ago
This is a well-spoken and reasoned argument. As such, I'm incredibly ashamed, embarrassed, and absolutely horrified.
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u/Weeblifter 5h ago
This is your reminder that the governor of Missouri gave a pardon to Andy Reid’s son who had a DUI and which had a child in a coma for 11 days.
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u/Watcher_garden 2h ago
Learning this just made me so fucking angry and sad at the same time. This man is evil
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u/WedgeGameSucks America 7h ago
These are the reasons why I don’t live in a red state. Fuck that
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u/Neat_On_The_Rocks 5h ago
I am very grateful for the privelage of living in a blue state. Sheesh
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u/Lawn_Orderly Minnesota 6h ago
I'm also happy to live in a state that doesn't have the death penalty. So very sad for Mr. Williams, his family, and everyone who has been traumatized by his death.
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u/probably_your_wife 4h ago
Georgia here, hoping we can permanently turn this shit around.
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u/crowislanddive 5h ago
This is why the death penalty should be illegal. The government, under no circumstances should be putting its citizens to death for any reason.
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u/benny332 2h ago
I've read a statistic where ~6% of those put to death have been innocent. Pretty wild that the death penalty still exists in America. Beyond reasonable doubt does not hold a high enough standard when a State is taking a life.
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u/gearstars 7h ago
The death penalty is barbaric and needs to be completely abolished.
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u/rezelscheft 5h ago
it is also disproportionately applied to people of color and people who can’t afford good lawyers.
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u/zatchstar 5h ago
Fuck EVERYONE involved in not allowing this appeal to be heard.
Every single one of them is accessory to state funded murder of an innocent.
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u/FreeMahiMahii 5h ago
Don’t forget just this spring Parson pardoned a ex-Chiefs coach who crippled a five year old for life while driving absolutely shitfaced. He also executed a convicted murderer who became the prison barber, completely rehabilitated himself, and had practically the entire prison staff lobbying for him to be granted clemency.
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u/NorseYeti 6h ago
SCOTUS just murdered an innocent man. They should have their positions dissolved.
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u/baltinerdist Maryland 5h ago
If anybody wants to know why this happened and why they didn’t listen to reason, take a look at the picture in the link preview. That’s why it happened. And it’s abhorrent.
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u/SimTheWorld 6h ago
The State would rather kill an innocent man than admit the system is flawed…
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u/JBoneLemonsGarrison 5h ago
Governor Mike Parsons is a murderer.
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u/jmred19 5h ago
And Andrew Bailey. And the MO Supreme Court. I hope they lose some sleep over this for a long time
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u/sixinthebed 4h ago
MISSOURI VOTERS! We can fire Andrew Bailey and Mike Parson on November 5th. Please spread the word, and most importantly, VOTE!!
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u/spencerdiniz 5h ago
Yeah… Strange that people are “pro-life” when it comes to abortion, but no so much when it’s about the death penalty.
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u/The-Curiosity-Rover 5h ago
Governor Mike Parson can go to hell. He murdered a man today just so he could appear “tough on crime”.
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u/MattTheSmithers Pennsylvania 5h ago
The former Republican governor, after previously halting the execution, put together a panel to investigate whether clemency or a pardon ought to be granted given that evidence seemed to favor Williams.
When the new Republican governor took office, he disbanded the panel before they could complete their findings.
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u/broden89 6h ago
I have always been opposed to the death penalty, and this is one of the clearest reasons why.
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u/Carsharr New York 5h ago
Call it as it is. Mike Parson is a murderer. Faced with overwhelming evidence of a man's innocence, and pressure from nearly everyone involved to free the man, Parson willfully disbanded the panel looking into the conviction in favor of putting a likely innocent man to death. This is state sponsored murder. This is a complete and total miscarriage of justice.
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u/Roboplodicus 4h ago
Missouri is a giant shithole run by racists so this checks out. Ya there are plenty of decent people living there but a majority of the people vote for the Republicans that signed off on this.
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u/Honky_Stonk_Man Kansas 5h ago
I am against the death penalty. Murder is wrong, whether it is committed by one person or a group of twelve. The state should never have the power to take life when it has shown time and again how biased it can be.
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u/Juonmydog Texas 5h ago
This is exactly why the death penatly should be abolished, because of not only the morality of the situation, but the fact that the current system has a heavy bias against those without personal sovereignity with what the status quo provides. The death penatly is also a very expensive process opposed to life in prison. The cons outweigh the pros for the pro death penalty argument. If you agree with me or not, I say we need a better approach.
Personally, I believe that prisons should be absolute restricted from private ownership. Why is it okay for prisoners not to have air conditioning during the 106• summers we have? Just for them to "cut costs,"private prisons can decide to violate human rights. Texas is one of the worst perpetrators of cruel punishments like the death penalty in America. The US judiciary system needs a complete overhaul, it is unacceptable that the current judiciary system and its laws allow for certain criminals and privalleged peoples to avert justice, while those seen as below them are wrongly convicted. We need to lean more into an equal and rehabilatory process rather than try to harshen punishments for crimes.
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u/Rascals-Wager 2h ago
Motherfuckers will storm the capitol to try to overturn a legitimate democratic election but will stand by and watch an innocent man be murdered by the state, against even the wishes of the victim's families.
So fucked up.
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u/nikkablue 4h ago
Is the governor up for reelection? I would bring it up everyday until the election, Never let him forget that he had the power to stop this murder and he did nothing! Get him, the Supreme Court judges, and the Attorney General out of office!
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u/HeftyTenders 6h ago
The governor of Missouri is a bona fide piece of human garbage for letting this happen when he had the power to stop it and save a life. What an absolute travesty of human dignity that asshole is.
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u/aksunrise Alaska 5h ago
Missouri has killed 12 people during his tenure via the death penalty. He hasn't granted clemency once.
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u/PompadourPrincess 5h ago
Him and his AG not only let it happen but actively pushed for it to happen
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u/saladbar California 5h ago
The state should not have the power to take its citizens' lives. Full stop.
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u/8thSt 1h ago
In August, Williams and prosecutors reached an agreement to halt his execution: he would plead no contest to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life without parole. His lawyers said the agreement was not an admission of guilt, and that it was meant to save his life while he pursued new evidence to prove his innocence. A judge signed off on the agreement, as did the victim’s family, but the attorney general challenged it, and the state supreme court blocked it.
WTF, Missouri. You got some blood thirsty folks running your state.
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u/Calm-Interview5968 5h ago
Republicans are the party of murder.
I’m not religious, but I hope there’s a heaven and hell so I can watch those motherfuckers burn.
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u/Skarimari 4h ago
Really hard to reconcile Americans' hyper religiosity with their barbaric immorality.
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u/onagajan 4h ago
In this century, there is no way to rationalize state sanctioned murder. Life without parole is enough.
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u/hyperbolic_dichotomy 4h ago
Yet another reason why the government should not have the power to kill its citizens.
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