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BLACK LIVES MATTER
Why Pro-Life Justices Refused to Save An Innocent Black Man’s Life
Execution of Marcellus “Khalifah” Williams exposes their inconsistency
The matter came up for judicial investigation, but as might have been expected, the white people concluded it was unnecessary to wait for the result of the investigation — that it was preferable to hang the accused first and try him afterward,” Ida B. Wells wrote in The Red Record in 1895. However, similar words could have easily been uttered after the Missouri execution of Marcellus “Khalifah” Williams, a 55-year-old Black father and poet, Tuesday evening. Despite compelling evidence supporting his innocence in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, neither Governor Mike Parson, the Missouri Supreme Court, nor the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to save his life. This decision has left many in the black community grief-stricken and outraged at the injustice. “Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,” the NAACP responded, clarifying that “when DNA evidence proves innocence, capital punishment is not justice — it is murder.” To add salt to the wound, so-called pro-life Supreme Court justices are the ones who refused to grant Williams a stay of execution.
Pro-life justices failed to intervene to save the life of a Black man who even prosecutors believed was innocent, and in doing so, exposed the irony in their position. It seems their support of life is limited to “potential life” rather than actual life. Of course, this isn’t the first time a contradiction was laid bare. Despite conservatives claiming to pass state-wide abortion bans to protect life, these policies have contributed to a callous disregard for the lives of mothers. In ProPublica, Kavitha Surana revealed that two Black women became the first preventable deaths following a statewide abortion ban in Georgia. Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28-year old Black woman, and 41-year old Candi Miller lost their lives because doctors refused to quickly administer life-saving care in fear they would break the law and be criminally punished. And yet, another layer of irony is added by conservatives’ position on the death penalty.
The fact that pro-life conservative justices refused to intervene to save a life exposes this political attitude as shallow…
