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

innocenceproject.org

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

#91

Does anyone find it deeply disturbing that the justice system will just sit on its own hands when presented with new evidence? It seems like prosecutors are more interested in maintaining a hi conviction rate rather than seeking justice. Judges seem totally apathetic.

Yes very disturbing, but not unexpected.This is the foundational nature of government, and why citizen's don't generally want big government.

Government jobs inherently suffer from a number of structural issues. Both organizationally, as well as psychologically. Without a loss function, such as is required in business (where people get fired for lack of production and revenue dictates hiring), psychology changes in forever jobs.

Social coercion and corruption occur commonly, and this grows with time trending towards negative production value and other forms of corruption. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, best describes the former. Anyone doing too much work is making everyone else look bad and they need to be harassed and punished until they fall into line.

The way the interlocking centralized systems operate, anyone working in any position backed by government would be incentivized to meet a classical definition of evil just to do their job, and the psychology tests often done select for complementary characteristics towards that.

Sure they manage to catch some real bad guys occasionally, and there are rare people who take their job seriously; don't fall to corruption and stay on the straight and narrow; but these are the exceptions, and the ends don't justify the means when the person is innocent.

The mechanics of just doing their job would almost certainly enable many acts of evil to be performed by them without them ever knowing, and information control makes them blind to it. They chose the job and that is part of the job so they willfully blinded themselves.

This presents both ethical and moral paradoxes, with little penalty when they get it wrong after a certain point. Mistakes happen as everyone is fundamentally flawed (and not perfect), but when those mistakes aren't fixed because of structural issues; they become as they were incentivized to be; and the dead cannot be brought back to life.

By Definition, Evil acts are destructive acts, Evil people are those who have willfully blinded themselves to the consequences of their evil acts (often through repeated acts of self-violation, such as falsely justifying the unjustifiable, and bearing false witness (storytelling a narrative when the evidence doesn't support it), etc.

Regarding judges seeming apathetic, it is almost impossible to remove judges in most cases. Only judges can judge other judges, and there is a inherent old boys club. Only rarely for egregious misconduct do removals happen because if a judge is removed, all cases they presided over need to potentially be reviewed.

There is incentive to never remove judges due to cost of mistakes, and for a similar reason judges rarely favor appeals because they would be overturning previous judges rulings.

Needless to say, when innocent people are killed because judges didn't do their job, and they remain blind to that consequence with no resistance towards repeating it, they'll be in for one 'hell' of a surprise when they pass and find no pearly white gates waiting for them.

Most truly evil people believe they are good.

This drives home the importance of choosing your profession carefully and wisely because you spend the most time at it, and it changes you for good or worse.

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

#92

Still not sure with so many of the (esp right leaning) in the US claiming to be christian, can also accept this as a punishment. But I get nonsense begets more nonsense.

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

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of evidence. He confessed to his girlfriend, and a cellmate. He pawned the victim's possessions. He was seen disposing of bloody clothes. He already had 15 felony convictions in addition to offenses related to Ms. Gayle's murder: robbery (2), armed criminal action (2), assault (2), burglary (4), stealing (3), stealing a motor vehicle, and unlawful use of a weapon. Now, as to whether this evidence is so…

> There's plenty of evidence. He confessed to his girlfriend, and a cellmate. Be careful, this is hearsay and not evidence. Those people claim that he confessed to them, but there is a lot more context. Here is what the linked story says about the "he confessed" part: > The investigation had gone cold until a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him that he…

Someone who is incarcerated snitching on someone who’s in there with them just screams “give me your cupcake or I’m gonna tell the cops you confessed to me”. Williams was also a person who was black and Muslim so prejudice alone could have been a motivation

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

#94
post #25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot help but wonder if his race had something do with the outcome :( The US Supreme Court denied a stay, with 3 liberal justices saying they would have stopped the execution. Thus my comment.

I haven't read anything about the Supreme Court's decision, but did they dissent on the grounds that they believed he was innocent, or that capital punishment shouldn't be allowed (and not comment on his guilt)?

Supreme Court justices don't typically explain their reasons for dissenting in emergency applications like this. They can if they choose to, but they didn't here.

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

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I'm an atheist, so I wouldn't consider myself an expert on their beliefs, but you don't appear to be either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_kill

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's plenty of evidence. He confessed to his girlfriend, and a cellmate. Be careful, this is hearsay and not evidence. Those people claim that he confessed to them, but there is a lot more context. Here is what the linked story says about the "he confessed" part: > The investigation had gone cold until a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him that he…

Someone who is incarcerated snitching on someone who’s in there with them just screams “give me your cupcake or I’m gonna tell the cops you confessed to me”. Williams was also a person who was black and Muslim so prejudice alone could have been a motivation

People say stupid things all the time as well. It’s not inconceivable to brag about something that’s not true either as an act of defiance or for social reasons such as to get some respect, look important, or to be left alone.

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

#97
post #85

There is no place for the death penalty in a civilized country!

I believe there are heinous crimes that do. Both fitting the crime and as a deterrent.

> as a deterrent

Do you have any sources supporting the claim that does actually deter anybody?

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

#98

Still not sure with so many of the (esp right leaning) in the US claiming to be christian, can also accept this as a punishment. But I get nonsense begets more nonsense.

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Being Christian is about forgiving and loving your neighbours, isn’t it?

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

#99

Why is this submission not on the front page if it has so many upvotes in the past hour, and the number of upvotes exceeds the number of comments?

Probably too many comments. Too much activity compared to the number of votes is interpreted as a sign of flame wars and heated and unproductive discussions, and sink stories. This kind of topics don’t stay on the front page for long, usually.

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I'm an atheist, so I wouldn't consider myself an expert on their beliefs, but you don't appear to be either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_kill

I guess it's a matter of interpretation; I am also an atheist but was raised a protestant (we had to memorise and read in front of the class selected parts from the bible every day) and our flavour (which might be different from even others in the same branch) definitely has no tolerance for justified killing except by the lord. I know some religions have tolerance for justified killing as you pointed out, just that's not what ours told us.

But point taken and people do and read into things whatever fits them.

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