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Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

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Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#241

Post by xyzzyz »

SadTrombone wrote: post #201
slibhb wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe the right message (and far less viral message), is the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted. The jury makes that determination after being locked in a room and forced to hear both sides and all the evidence. How much of the evidence are you aware of? What The Innocence Project posted? This thread is full of people who are anti-death penalty…

The prosecutor's office and the victim's family both pushed to stop the execution due to reasonable doubt. Think they might have an idea of the available evidence? The previous governor had begun an inquiry into the matter but the new governor shut that board down and blocked any and all attempts to halt the execution.

No, a prosecutor at no point argued that this guy was not guilty. Nobody argued that, except dishonest activists who lied to you. All prosecutor offered was commuting the death penalty to life without parole.

In addition, I don’t see how a random prosecutor’s opinion is relevant. If this was the original prosecutor who prosecuted the case, then it would have some evidentiary value. In this case, this is just some guy with zero connection to the original case. Why should we care what he believes, over opinion of hundreds of prosecutors in this country who are happy that the justice has finally been served?

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#242

Post by mardifoufs »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #113
EasyMark wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As well as the US Supreme Court

[flagged]

It's funny that you are making this argument due to this execution (which I'm against) while arguing for voting for a party that currently is in power and actively supports, almost unconditionally so, a state that is committing a genocide that killed tens of thousands in Gaza. The most ironic part is your last argument: "None of this affects me so I don't bother voting", which is funnily enough better than voting for a party that actually enables genocide because said genocide does not affect you. The other funny thing is that I know that the usual counter to that from the Democrats is to claim that "both sides are bad, Trump would've done the same!". Which is again, extremely ironic.

(And I'm not here to argue if it's a genocide or not. Let's say it's not. It's still an administration that de facto unconditionally supports and arms a war that has killed 50 000 civilians).

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#243

Post by XorNot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #233
voisin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that the girlfriend and jailhouse snitch both were looking to get the $10k reward money for his conviction. And that’s the only way the third point (had the items in the car) was known (from the girlfriend).

> argument is that the girlfriend and jailhouse snitch both were looking to get the $10k reward money for his conviction The Governor's counterargument being the "girlfriend never requested the reward for information about Ms. Gayle’s murder, despite claims that she was only interested in money" [1]. The interesting thing is I could see myself, were I on the jury, and if the other facts of the case aligned, finding W…

It also highlights the stupidity of the death penalty: the jury is instructed "if you find this person guilty, we will kill them for it" - i.e. an action with no possibility of reversal or redress.

It's an odd stress test of the idea of "reasonable doubt" because of course in reality, there's always some doubt but the level of doubt for "let's irreversible kill a person" versus "let's detain them for life, but admit the possibility extraordinary evidence might emerge which changes our decision" is pretty vast.

In a world where the development of DNA testing technology changed a lot of outcomes including numerous capital punishment cases, it's essentially unthinkable that we could continue with it.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#244

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

kelthuzad wrote: post #221
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather, the argument is that the presence of substantial forensic evidence at the crime scene that explicitly does not match the accused introduces significant reasonable doubt. Right, and this argument is just obviously wrong. The existence of forensic evidence which doesn't match the accused just proves that people other than the accused were in the victim's house at some point. It doesn't in any way contradict t…

When substantial forensic evidence such as fingerprints, DNA, or hair found at a crime scene does not match the accused, it does more than suggest the presence of others, it significantly undermines the hypothesis that the accused was involved in the crime, especially when such evidence is likely to have been left during the commission of the crime. In Marcellus Williams' case, the absence of his DNA or fingerprints…

My understanding of that quote is that the shoeprint but not the fingerprints were bloody, and it's of course impossible for a shoeprint to positively exclude someone unless you know every shoe they've ever worn. The hair I haven't heard anything specific about.

And while it's not forensic evidence, I would note the glaring absence of any followup to that second sentence of the quote. What the article never gets around to mentioning is that some of the victim's missing items were found in his car, and the laptop was recovered from a guy he sold it to. (He claims that he got the victim's laptop from his girlfriend, and as far as I know didn't offer any explanation of where the items in his car came from.)

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#245

Post by WheatMillington »

xyzzyz wrote: post #238
Beijinger wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In this quest for vengeance I think people forget these rules are in place for the State to not abuse it's powers. I'm not against the death penalty because I'm a hippy vegan. I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield." I am not sure what the US tries to achieve with the death penalty. Deterrence? Seems not to work. And EU countries have much lower violent crime. Even if the…

[flagged]

Activists don't have the power to free people.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#246

Post by JKCalhoun »

sparrish wrote: post #169
gizajob wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If murder is illegal, then it makes no difference if the state does it as punishment for committing murder. You’ve still sanctioned a murder, admittedly of a murderer. A civilised country accepts this simple logic and doesn’t sanction murder under any circumstances.

By this logic, holding someone against their will is illegal too. When a state does it, we call it incarceration. Is it wrong for the state to sanction incarcerating someone?

Incarceration can be appealed.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#247

Post by FpUser »

xyzzyz wrote: post #238
Beijinger wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In this quest for vengeance I think people forget these rules are in place for the State to not abuse it's powers. I'm not against the death penalty because I'm a hippy vegan. I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield." I am not sure what the US tries to achieve with the death penalty. Deterrence? Seems not to work. And EU countries have much lower violent crime. Even if the…

[flagged]

I am all for death penalty. As long as they execute judge and prosecutor for each mistake. What the heck - add executioners as well.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#248

Post by WheatMillington »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #239
Beijinger wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In this quest for vengeance I think people forget these rules are in place for the State to not abuse it's powers. I'm not against the death penalty because I'm a hippy vegan. I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield." I am not sure what the US tries to achieve with the death penalty. Deterrence? Seems not to work. And EU countries have much lower violent crime. Even if the…

[flagged]

Every country has populations which are overrepresented in crime... did you really just say "They have less crime because they don't have blacks"?!?

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#249

Post by WheatMillington »

iwontberude wrote: post #206
slibhb wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe the right message (and far less viral message), is the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted. The jury makes that determination after being locked in a room and forced to hear both sides and all the evidence. How much of the evidence are you aware of? What The Innocence Project posted? This thread is full of people who are anti-death penalty…

> This thread is full of people who are anti-death penalty Who even argues in favor of it? What studies shows that the death penalty is effective? Who has done cost benefit analysis for civic life to have the government executing people generally speaking? So many truthy arguments on behalf of the death penalty.

I oppose the death penalty, but social policies should not be based on the outcome of cost/benefit analysis. If they were, executions would be used far more, on much less serious crimes, given rates of recidivism and revictimisation amongst certain crime types.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#250

Post by istjohn »

If we aren't going to abolish the death penalty, we should at least require a higher standard of proof than beyond a reasonable doubt to carry it out. It should require incontrovertible proof. Circumstantial evidence should not be allowed. Expert testimony should be barred. The evidence must be conclusive, plain, and certain to every member of the jury. This would allow you to execute, e.g., mass shooters who give themselves up, but make it extremely unlikely to irreversibly kill someone on the basis of junk science, induced or extorted testimony, or other fallible evidence.
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