Image: Flag, announcing lynching, flown from the window of the NAACP headquarters on 69 Fifth Ave., New York City, 1936 via the Library of Congress
On Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, Marcellus Williams was executed by lethal injection, despite the victim’s family and prosecutors’ disapproval. Williams was accused of the brutal murder of Felicia Gayle in 1998. She had been found in her home in Missouri, having been stabbed over 40 times with a knife taken from her kitchen in what police have branded a burglary. It would not be until 2001 that Williams was arrested as the suspected culprit. His girlfriend testified against him, as did a former cellmate. Williams had been arrested in 1999 for the armed robbery of a doughnut shop. His girlfriend said she saw a stolen purse and laptop that belonged to Gayle, which he later sold, in his car. While Williams did sell the stolen laptop, there was evidence that suggested that he had gotten it from his girlfriend. Not only was there suspicion about how Williams received the laptop, but both his girlfriend and his former cellmate had been convicted of felonies and they wanted an incentive to give information regarding this case for $10,000. None of the evidence that had been left at the crime scene —fingerprints, bloody shoe prints and hair, amongst other articles — matched Williams’. After a series of trials that extended for over two decades, Marcellus Williams was determined to be the murderer and was executed. His last statement simply read, “All Praise Be to Allah in Every Situation!!!”
In the wake of this decision, it has garnered mainstream attention and people around the world are calling the choice to execute Marcellus Williams unjust. Due to the lack of solid and conclusive evidence to pin him to the crime, there was no justifiable reason to pin the crime on him, let alone kill him. On Twitter, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) posted:
“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man. Governor Parson had the responsibility to save this innocent life, and he didn’t. The NAACP was founded in 1909 in response to the barbaric lynching of Black people in America — we were founded exactly because of people like Governor Parson who perpetuate violence against innocent Black people.”
Michael Parson became governor of Missouri in 2018, one year after DNA testing of the murder weapon gave new evidence that stayed Williams’ execution. The former governor, Eric Greitens, assembled a team to investigate this new finding and dictate whether he should be granted clemency. This team was dissolved abruptly after six years by Parson. Williams’ lawyers argued that this decision stripped away his right to due process, as stated in the Fifth Amendment.
This is the biggest problem with having a death penalty. Those who cannot be proven to be fully responsible for the crime should not be put to death. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, “since 1973, at least 200 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated.” We all know that humans are not perfect and often make incorrect judgements of people, which is why the death penalty should not still be in effect.
Geoff Soland is a fourth-year History major with minors in Journalism and Museum Studies.