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After Latest US Execution, Progressives Say 'Abolish the Death Penalty'
"The use of the death penalty in the United States is one of the ugliest stains on our broken criminal justice system," said Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Sep 25, 2024
Amid a wave of executions in Republican-led states—including Tuesday's lethal injection of Marcellus Williams in Missouri—progressive U.S. lawmakers and groups renewed calls to "abolish the death penalty."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) were among those who took to social media to demand an end to capital punishment following Williams' execution.
"The use of the death penalty in the United States is one of the ugliest stains on our broken criminal justice system," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). "It is disproportionately imposed against poor people and people of color. We must abolish it once and for all."
Williams, 55, was killed by the state of Missouri via lethal injection—a method known for botched executions—despite serious doubts about his guilt. The office that prosecuted him sought to have his murder conviction overturned and members of the victim's family pleaded for clemency.
"Sometimes injustice is so glaring that it leaves us struggling to comprehend how such events could happen in the first place," Bush said in a statement released after Williams' execution.
The congresswoman continued:
The deadly decision to execute Williams came despite urgent pleas from Missourians and people all across the country... who called for clemency. Gov. Mike Parson didn't just ignore these pleas and end Williams' life, he demonstrated how the death penalty is wielded without regard for innocence, compassion, equity, or humanity. He showed us how the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" can be applied selectively, depending on who stands accused and who stands in power.
"The state of Missouri and our nation's legal system failed Marcellus Williams, and as long as we uphold the death penalty, we continue to perpetuate this depravity—where an innocent person can be killed in the name of justice," Bush stressed. "We have a moral imperative to abolish this racist and inhumane practice, and to work towards building a just legal system that values humanity and compassion over criminalization and violence."
"Rest in power, Marcellus Williams," she added.
Williams wasn't the only one executed on Tuesday. Travis Mullis—a 38-year-old autistic man who murdered his infant son—was killed by lethal injection in Texas after waiving his right to appeal.
Last week, South Carolina executed Freddie Owens by lethal injection after Republican state Attorney General Alan Wilson brushed off a key prosecution witness' bombshell claim that the convicted man did not commit the murder for which his life was taken.
Although the number of U.S. executions has been steadily decreasing from 85 in 2000 to 24 last year, there is currently a surge in state killings, with five more people set to be put to death in three states by October 17.
On Thursday, Alabama is scheduled to kill Alan Eugene Miller using nitrogen gas, despite the inmate suffering severe mental illness. Miller was meant to be put to death in 2022; however, prison staff could not find a vein in which to inject the lethal cocktail and his execution was postponed.
That same day, Emmanuel Antonio Littlejohn is set to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma, even after the state's Pardon and Parole Board voted to recommend clemency.
According to a 2014 study, over 4% of people on U.S. death rows did not commit the crime for which they were condemned. The Death Penalty Information Center found that since 1973, at least 200 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated.
"The only way to eliminate the possibility of executing an innocent person is to do away with the death penalty altogether," the advocacy group Human Rights First said Wednesday.
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GOP Killing Spree Continues as Missouri Executes Marcellus Williams
"We must abolish this flawed, racist, inhumane practice once and for all," Congresswoman Cori Bush said of the death penalty.
Sep 24, 2024
Update: The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection Monday evening over the objections of his prosecutor and the murder victim's relatives, The Associated Pressreported.
Earlier:
Advocates for a man set to be executed by the state of Missouri on Tuesday lodged desperate pleas for Republican Gov. Mike Parson to change course and grant an eleventh-hour reprieve in a case with such serious red flags that even the office that prosecuted the defendant wants his conviction overturned.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay for Williams, one day after both Parson and the Missouri Supreme Court said they would not halt Williams' killing by lethal injection—a method associated with botched executions—barring a last-minute change of heart by the governor.
"We wish we had better news. But as of now, Marcellus Williams is still scheduled to be executed by Missouri tonight at 6:00 pm Central for a crime he is totally innocent of," the Innocence Project—which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people—said in a social media post.
Williams, who is Black, was convicted in 2001 of murdering Felicia Gayle, a white woman, during a 1998 robbery. DNA found on the knife used to kill Gayle matched another man. However, Williams was convicted by a nearly all-white jury after St. Louis County prosecutors were permitted to preemptively strike half a dozen Black prospective jurors from service.
Earlier this year, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, a Democrat running for Congress, asked to vacate Williams' conviction, citing "clear and convincing evidence" of his innocence including evidence contamination and the revelation that at least one potential juror was excluded because he was Black.
However, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled against stopping the execution, asserting that Williams' lawyers "failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams' actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial."
Following the ruling, Parson said that Williams "has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction."
Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—a death penalty opponent who was recently defeated by Bell in their district's Democratic House primary—joined civil and human rights defenders in appealing to Parson to reconsider.
"A system that rules that an innocent man can be executed by the hands of the state is anything but just," Bush said on social media. "Gov. Parson must reverse his disgraceful decision not to stop this inhumane execution and act now to save Marcellus Williams' life."
As NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund president and director-counsel Janai Nelson noted:
There is a groundswell of voices calling for either commutation or a temporary reprieve. As you know, these voices include the family of Felicia Gayle... Gayle's family had communicated their "desire that the death penalty not be carried out in this case." Mr. Williams has presented compelling evidence that he is innocent of Ms. Gayle's murder. The perpetrator of this horrific crime left behind significant forensic evidence, including fingerprints, footprints, hair, and trace DNA on the murder weapon. None of this evidence matches Mr. Williams. The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney has recognized that Mr. Williams' capital trial was marred by constitutional errors and the prosecution's presentation of unreliable evidence, which undermine confidence in the judgment against him.
"I implore you to use your gubernatorial authority to grant Mr. Williams clemency, or, at a minimum, grant a reprieve until the underlying conviction can be investigated further and applicable law can be determined," Nelson said.
As Amherst College law professor Austin Sarat noted in Slate Monday, the United States is currently "witnessing the worst execution spree in three decades."
Republican-led states are set to carry out four state-sanctioned killings in addition to last week's lethal injection of Freddie Owens in South Carolina, despite the key prosecution witness' bombshell claim that the convicted man did not commit the murder for which he was put to death.
"This week's execution spree should unsettle all Americans, whether or not they support the death penalty," Sarat wrote. "It will offer further reasons for why capital punishment should be abolished everywhere in this country."
As the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) notes on its website, capital punishment "carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person."
"Since 1973, at least 200 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated," the group says, adding that it is "clear that innocent defendants will be convicted and sentenced to death with some regularity as long as the death penalty exists."
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'Let Palestine Speak': Uncommitted Shares Speech the DNC Won't Allow
"We are waiting for a phone call from Vice President Harris and the DNC to allow a single Palestinian American speaker from the convention stage."
Aug 22, 2024
What would a Palestinian speaker tell U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the thousands of delegates gathered at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and millions more people watching across the country and around the world as Israel—which is on trial for genocide at the World Court—continues its obliteration of Gaza?
On Thursday, the Uncommitted National Movement—which garnered hundreds of thousands of Democratic primary votes against the Biden-Harris administration's support for Israel's war—circulated a copy of the speech it still hopes to deliver on the DNC main stage.
However, DNC organizers are refusing to allow any Palestinian to speak on that stage, where the Israeli-American parents of a young man kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 spoke Wednesday night with Uncommitted's blessing. Uncommitted used a space away from the main stage to hold a first-ever DNC panel on Palestinian rights on Monday and a Tuesday press conference featuring testimonies from American doctors who recently volunteered in Gaza hospitals.
"We don't know why the campaign said no. We literally have no feedback. We are in the dark."
The DNC rebuff prompted a sit-in protest by some of the approximately 30 Uncommitted delegates and their supporters, as well as calls from progressive lawmakers, human rights defenders, and allies including the United Auto Workers for the Democratic Party to change course.
Uncommitted and allied groups including Let Palestine Speak and Not Another Bomb held a Thursday evening press conference outside the United Center, the Chicago arena hosting the DNC and the site of large protests before and during the convention.
"We are waiting for a phone call from Vice President Harris and the DNC to allow a single Palestinian American speaker from the convention stage," Uncommitted said earlier Thursday. "Our party's platform states that every life is valuable: whether American, Palestinian, or Israeli."
The proposed DNC speech would be delivered by Uncommitted delegate and Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), who is Palestinian American.
Here's what she wants to say:
My name is Ruwa Romman, and I'm honored to be the first Palestinian elected to public office in the great state of Georgia and the first Palestinian to ever speak at the Democratic National Convention. My story begins in a small village near Jerusalem, called Suba, where my dad's family is from. My mom's roots trace back to Al Khalil, or Hebron. My parents, born in Jordan, brought us to Georgia when I was eight, where I now live with my wonderful husband and our sweet pets.
Growing up, my grandfather and I shared a special bond. He was my partner in mischief—whether it was sneaking me sweets from the bodega or slipping a $20 into my pocket with that familiar wink and smile. He was my rock, but he passed away a few years ago, never seeing Suba or any part of Palestine again. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him.
This past year has been especially hard. As we've been moral witnesses to the massacres in Gaza, I've thought of him, wondering if this was the pain he knew too well. When we watched Palestinians displaced from one end of the Gaza Strip to the other I wanted to ask him how he found the strength to walk all those miles decades ago and leave everything behind.
But in this pain, I've also witnessed something profound—a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we've stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That's why we are here—members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world.
They'll say this is how it's always been, that nothing can change. But remember Fannie Lou Hamer—shunned for her courage, yet she paved the way for an integrated Democratic Party. Her legacy lives on, and it's her example we follow.
But we can't do it alone. This historic moment is full of promise, but only if we stand together. Our party's greatest strength has always been our ability to unite. Some see that as a weakness, but it's time we flex that strength.
Let's commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris, and defeating Donald Trump, who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let's fight for the policies long overdue—from restoring access to abortions to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a cease-fire in Gaza. To those who doubt us, to the cynics and the naysayers, I say, yes we can—yes we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us—Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us, like my grandfather taught me, together.
Uncommitted toldMother Jones that it is open to having the speech vetted and even edited, but that the DNC has not asked to see it.
"We don't know why the campaign said no. We literally have no feedback. We are in the dark," said Romman. "I want to be clear. We've been in negotiations for days. This did not just come up... We've been talking about this for at least a week."
Some observers speculated that the DNC is denying stage time to a Palestinian because party officials worry the speaker will go off-script and criticize the Biden administration's staunch support for Israel in the form of tens of billions of dollars in military assistance, diplomatic cover including United Nations Security Council vetoes, and outright genocide denial.
"We need the stages of the DNC to reflect the fullness of our party, inclusive of Palestinian Americans, who are grieving and mourning and demanding better of their leaders," said Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—whose sponsorship of a Gaza cease-fire resolution led to a torrent of cash from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee into her pro-Israel Democratic primary opponent's campaign coffers. Bush lost the race.
"The Democratic Party prides itself on being the party of human rights," Bush added. "So when it comes to defending Palestinian lives and ending the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Democratic Party needs to uphold those same values."
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