On September 24th, the state of Missouri executed 55-year-old Marcellus Williams by lethal injection after more than two decades on death row. Civil rights advocates and lawmakers from across the U.S. have condemned the decisions of The Missouri Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court, and Missouri Governor Mike Parson for their collective failure to protect an innocent man’s life. Most prominently, the state of Missouri even ignored the wishes of the victim’s husband, who has persistently spoken out against Williams’ execution, as well as statements from prosecutors who have supported his claims of innocence. This morally unjust case demonstrates both the ineffectiveness of the death penalty and its intrinsic racist characteristics.

In 1999, Williams was convicted of first-degree murder in the stabbing of Felicia Gayle during a robbery in her home in St. Louis, Missouri. During the trial, prosecutors claimed that Williams broke into her home, stole her purse and her husband’s laptop, and stabbed Gayle 43 times. According to court documents, the knife used in the stabbing remained lodged in Gayle’s body when police arrived at the scene, providing evidence of blood, hair, fingerprints, and shoe prints belonging to the culprit. However, Williams’ defense argued that no evidence could plausibly connect Williams to the murder weapon or other evidence found at the crime scene. Additionally, The Associated Press reported that his conviction was determined by the testimony of two eyewitnesses motivated by a $10,000 award. The flaws of the trial were exacerbated by the fact that six out of seven potential Black jurors were removed from his trial, with one being removed because of the highly discriminatory reason that one of them “looked like Williams’ brother.”

Despite the insistent odds against him, Williams continued to assert his innocence for decades with the help of organizations such as the Innocence Project, a group dedicated to preventing wrongful convictions. Over the recent years, Williams has received postponements to his execution, including one in 2015 and one in 2017. However, neither prompted the reversal of his sentence. Moreover, in 2021, a law was enacted that allowed prosecutors to bring a motion to overturn a conviction if they believed that justice was obstructed, prompting Williams to challenge the verdict against him once again. During this time, prosecutor Wesley Bell brought attention to the various flaws in Williams’ trial and how those flaws violated his constitutional rights. Even so, the undeniable evidence proved insufficient to save Williams’ life.

This irreversible mistake should evoke lawmakers to put an end to the death penalty on a federal level. Since 1976, 1,596 people have been executed by various states and the federal government. In that same period, 193 people have been exonerated from death row, meaning that for every eight executions, there is one exoneration, underscoring the risks associated with the death penalty. Furthermore, the death penalty serves little purpose, as there is no evidence that it improves public safety or deters people from committing crimes. Although the South conducts the majority of executions, the murder rates in those states are much higher compared to other regions in the U.S. It is also important to note that the death penalty is inherently discriminatory and is often applied disproportionally against people of color and lower-class individuals. To illustrate, according to Amnesty International, more than 41% of the prisoners on death row in the U.S. are Black, even though Black people only make up about 13% of the population. The death penalty is an issue that is too faulty to fix.

While progress has been made, with nearly half of the U.S. outlawing the death penalty, more must be done to ensure that people are aware of the profound injustices it perpetuates. Marcellus Williams and numerous others who were wrongfully sentenced to death should still be alive today. No government should have the right to kill any human being—it is unconstitutional and does not serve the interest of justice, regardless of the circumstances.