Killing in the Name

Marcellus Williams was executed by the state of Missouri last night, in defiance of prosecutors and the victim’s family asking he be spared. As the Innocence Project notes, “The State destroyed or corrupted the evidence that could conclusively prove his innocence and the available DNA and other forensic crime-scene evidence does not match him. There is far too much uncertainty in this case to allow Mr. Williams to be executed, particularly when the victim’s family believes life without parole is the appropriate sentence.”

But six Republican Supreme Court justices defied these objections and ruled that Missouri had the right to kill Williams. The American state is so wedded to its culture of violence that its power structures are willing to disregard its own legal standards for guilt in service of its insatiable bloodlust. NAACP President Derrick Johnson even called it a lynching.

That Marcellus Williams is Black should come as no surprise in a country where some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project pointed out that the prosecutor, Keith Larner, removed six of seven Black prospective jurors. Larner even testified that he eliminated one potential Black juror in part because he thought he looked like Williams, another demonstration of racial bias in this case among the many that Williams’ attorneys rose.

This is America. The child killing country. Built by slaves on top of the graves of Native Americans. Killing in the name of the slave-owners and financiers who built this system. This was true in 1776, and it is still true in 2024, where slavery still exists in America.

Marcellus Williams should be alive today, so says the family of the murder victim and the prosecutors. But the American state does not concern itself with such matters when its founding premise is challenged. It is a machine bred and built on violence against minorities, and it’s not about to stop doing what it is designed to do just because mankind has evolved past a point the depraved American state could ever hope to reach.

Those that work forces and burn crosses have endured throughout America’s history, designing the state in their own image. A state that even in 2024 with a lack of DNA evidence, is still dedicated to killing Black people as a matter of its founding principles. The bias inherent in Marcellus Williams’ trial extended to his battle against his execution, demonstrating the American state’s vision of justice. America kills, and it kills for a reason. The next time our ugly history rears its head again like this, don’t forget who America is killing in the name of.