Marcellus Khaliifah Williams was born on December 30, 1968. And on September 24, 2024, he was executed. He maintained that he didn’t commit murder in 1998. He hoped DNA evidence on the murder weapon would prove it. But the state of Missouri wasn’t interested in the truth.
For months ahead of Williams’ trial, the assistant prosecuting attorney handled the weapon, a butcher knife, without gloves, deeming it “worthless” as evidence. So, while 2016 DNA testing excluded Williams from having handled the knife, present DNA couldn’t exclude prosecutors - making the DNA of whoever killed with the knife irretrievable.
Supported by the murder victim’s family and eventually even the prosecution, he hoped for an exoneration-inclusive plea deal. But Missouri’s Attorney General advocated against it, feeding into a longstanding racist system that also revealed racial bias, removing Black jurors, from selection. A circuit judge refused to throw out the conviction. And when he needed it most Governor Mike Parson and the Supreme Court denied him too.
Black defendants are disproportionately placed on death row and executed, even sometimes after the procedure goes horribly wrong. This punishment is an extension of lynching, which is why innocence and guilt don’t actually matter to authorities. And while many other countries have already abolished the death penalty, the US still carries out this outdated, racist practice that now has the lowest support since 1972.
Black defendants are disproportionately placed on death row and executed, even sometimes after the procedure goes horribly wrong. This punishment is an extension of lynching, which is why innocence and guilt don’t actually matter to authorities. And while many other countries have already abolished the death penalty, the US still carries out this outdated, racist practice that now has the lowest support since 1972.