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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

#381

Post by nemo44x »

dropin685 wrote: post #312
blcknight wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unrelated people recounted confessions he made to them that included details that were never made public Do you have a source? "The case against Mr. Williams turned on the testimony of two unreliable witnesses who were incentivized by promises of leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money. The investigation had gone cold until a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed t…

> " [...] neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. " My brain is short-circuiting over the two parts of this snippet from The Innocence Project. Presumably both are intended to suggest unreliable individuals and an unjust guilty verdict, but I find a mismatch between the two. It's one thing to suppose the individuals revealed some d…

Just read the background from the appeal case and urs clear as day he’s guilty. They challenged a bunch of technicalities with flimsy arguments. At no point did they challenge if the evidence was sufficient.

https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...

He stabbed that women 43 times. And yet these fools support this evil monster of a man.

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

#382

Post by nemo44x »

sophacles wrote: post #134
nemo44x wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is fallable, sure. But consider this: the guy had millions of dollars of pro bono legal machinery behind him and even still could not produce an argument or counter evidence to support his claim. Our system is amazingly transparent and corruption or outright denial of evidence would be clearly apparent. And it’s not there. The system works almost always but does get it wrong sometimes. I doubt that this wa…

> and corruption or outright denial of evidence would be clearly apparent Not really - the legal discovery rules require full disclosure of all evidence, yet you regularly hear about how prosecutors don't disclose evidence. Sometimes the appeals process will grant a new trial, sometimes they overturn, but often the judges will just say "we're not going to bother worrying about the lack of a fair trial". It happens of…

In this case though the defense never even challenged the evidence or if it was sufficient. You “regularly” hear about it because it’s so rare that it’s news if it happens. It’s a very rare event.

Read the background here and tell me you really support this man who stabbed that woman - mother and wife - 43 times.

https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...

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

#383

Post by chakintosh »

rdtsc wrote: post #2

> Even the victim’s family believes life without parole is the appropriate sentence That is odd, if there is no evidence that links him to the crime why not argue to let him go? Is that just from a desire to have someone punished, no matter who it is.

Probably so he could have a chance at freedom in case new evidence comes to light exonerating him.

Can't really defend yourself if you're dead.

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

#384

Post by wizzwizz4 »

cvoss wrote: post #288
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also testimony of God overturning / fulfilling prior commandments (Matthew 5:17–21, Acts 10:9–16). The Bible contains a lot of laws and punishments that aren't respected in the United States: selective quoting doesn't strike me as a particularly compelling argument. There's also testimony of Jesus disrupting an instance of capital punishment (John 8:3–11). There may have been procedural issues in that case, o…

It is important to understand the difference between moral laws, which are immutable, and other laws in the Bible, often categorized as civil or ceremonial. In modern legal theory, we have a similar distinction, which you may know from Legally Blonde: malum in se (that which is inherently wrong) and malum prohibitum (that which is wrong because a lawful authority prohibits it). Example: endangering the safety of othe…

You're right, Jesus isn't saying "you are free to murder". But in every case we see Jesus prevent (or reverse: Luke 22:49–51) bloodshed, the bloodshed would have been retribution or punishment. Jesus is presented as reasonably anti-murder. Whether that holds in the case of capital punishment, I can't say.

Though, Jesus was subject to capital punishment, despite the original prosecutor (Pontius Pilate) claiming no lawful basis for the execution (Luke 22:66–23:25). This was presented as unjust, despite Jesus' insistence that it had to happen. This is a bit muddled as an analogy, but I see how some people might take "capital punishment is wrong" from it.

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

#385

Post by iphoneisbetter »

diogenes_atx wrote: post #314
lolinder wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the ruler and calculator in fact belonged to the victim that is an important clarification of your "the police did not find the victim's property in Williams' car", and your reaction is unnecessarily dismissive. Just acknowledge the error and move on, no need for sarcastic defensiveness.

Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer. Here is a quick summary of the main issues: (1) There is no reliable evidence that Williams is guilty of the crime; (2) The DNA evidence from the crime scene does not match Williams; (3) Numerous legal experts, including St. Louis County Prose…

[flagged]

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

#386

Post by snapcaster »

redundantly wrote: post #322
snapcaster wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we lost Roe v. Wade because the democrat party is so useless at representing our interests they failed to ever pass any law granting the right to abortion. Republicans didn't sit on their hands complacently for 40 years like democrats they followed a systematic approach to overturning it. Meanwhile the democrats did nothing except ask me for more money and continue to take L after L

This downplays the GOP’s role. Their decades-long plan, including stacking the courts, reveals just how hateful and ruthless they are in pursuing their agenda. While Democrats could have done more, obstacles like the filibuster and narrow majorities made passing protections difficult. The bigger issue is the GOP’s deliberate and depraved effort to strip away rights. Don’t give them a pass on it by blaming others.

I'm sorry but this is such a loser take. You're mad at your opponents for playing the game? I would hate to be on your team in any kind of competition

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

#388

Post by haswell »

pie_flavor wrote: post #317
haswell wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there was plenty of strong evidence that he did it, such as possessing all the victim's stuff and pawning her laptop This should not be sufficient to justify the death penalty. Whether or not this guy did it, using such an incredibly weak standard will and almost certainly has killed innocent people. > This is the Innocence Project's standard beat. They attempt to free a lot of convicts…whose conviction was based o…

[flagged]

> If [the accusations] were refutable, he would have refuted it at trial.

This is not what irrefutable means. There are many reasons something might be refuted poorly at trial even if the accused never did anything wrong at all. This is why appeals happen.

The standard of evidence I’m talking about is whether or not it is possible in principle to call the evidence into question, not whether or not the defense team did a good job.

Put another way, there must be a preponderance of evidence such that it is not possible even in principle to question it, i.e. the crime was committed in a room full of witnesses, or the crime was captured on camera, etc. The evidence must be so air tight that there is no possible way to question it.

That standard was not met in this case.

> You are welcome to morally oppose the death penalty in principle, but with the set of moral opinions that produced the Missouri legal code, the death penalty was not misapplied in this case

The opinions that produced the Missouri legal code that allowed this execution are immoral/unethical independent of one’s position on the death penalty itself. One does not have to oppose the penalty entirely to demand proper standards of evidence.

Personally, I don’t think the death penalty should exist. But if it must exist, it must be held to an appropriate standard. That this is even slightly controversial is something I have a difficult time understanding.

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

#390

Post by BadHumans »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #262
BadHumans wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democrats would need a super majority to pass abortion and the last time that happened was 09.

Yes they should have done it in 09 then or one of the many other times. It's been half a century since roe they've had opportunity if it had been important to them.

Formally codifying abortion was not a popular issue among voters in 09. In other words, you're somewhat right, it wasn't important to them because it wasn't important to voters. People seem to think that this issue has always had the support it has now.
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