LAW
Why An Innocent Black Man is Sitting on Missouri Death Row
The case of Marcellus Williams highlights an unjust system
Throughout American history, many innocent Black men were slain, at times outside of the law, through lynching—and other times, through state-sanctioned violence. While the former is shunned as it deprives the accused of any opportunity to defend themselves, the latter is not a well-oiled machine that only punishes the guilty. Since 1973, 1 in 8 people executed in the United States were exonerated. Those who are Black carry an even heavier burden. As Stephen B. Bright (1995) noted, America’s death penalty is a “direct descendent of lynching.” Far too often, White people use this system to kill Black people, even if they are innocent of the crimes others accused them of committing. As Clark (1998) described, “state executioners replaced lynch mobs in carrying out the will of the white majority.” The racially disproportionate enforcement of the death penalty dispels the notion that our criminal justice system is impartial.
One of the most pressing examples is the case of Marcellus Williams, a 55-year-old Black man wrongfully convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a social worker and reporter, in a 1998 fatal stabbing. Despite DNA evidence proving he was not guilty of the crime prosecutors…
