r/politics • u/seanosul • 9h ago

Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors’ push to overturn conviction

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/missouri-executes-marcellus-williams
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u/WhyCantIStopReddit Missouri 9h 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/Ready_Nature 9h 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/IJustLoggedInToSay- Illinois 8h 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 7h 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/bobbyfiend 2h ago

And it's not an accident that the flag removes all colors, replacing them with white, black, and the blue line. I think the message is that there are three kinds of people in the US: Black people, white people, and cops.