Originally published at: Missouri kills potentially innocent man over prosecutors' objection - Boing Boing
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The machinery of oppression does not allow the sacrifice of innocents. It demands it.
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Why wasn’t he granted a pardon, clemency or stay of execution? But regardless, he has been murdered by the judicial system, i doubt there will be consequences but sure would love it if there were.
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The Governor said no. https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article292791599.html
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What ever happened to Blackstone’s ratio: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
I guess Missouri hit their ratio limit, assholes…
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It’s hard to overstate how much of a tragic farce this was, and how far away from anything resembling “justice” any of these fuckers reside. May this evil trash never know a moment’s true peace the rest of his miserable life.
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Missouri’s governor is a witless Republican racist.
This is why while I have no qualms with executing people like Timothy McVeigh, I’d let him die in prison because the state fucks it up with innocent people like Williams. Before DNA evidence, I bet this happened even more often.
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McVeigh’s execution covered up the network of violent racists he was working with. Not sure if that was the Federal government’s intention, but it certainly was the effect. 30 years later we’re still grappling with getting a handle on white nationalist terrorism.
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We live in a society where the political fallout for executing an innocent person is less consequential than the fallout for appearing “soft on crime.”
Monstrous.
ETA: In a way, all the people who pushed for/allowed this man’s death are more guilty than most people serving time for murder. Murder is most frequently a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing; a crime of violent impulse that the killers likely wouldn’t have done if they’d had time to dispassionately weigh the consequences of their actions before going through with it. The governor, the Supreme Court and everyone else who was complicit in this execution don’t have that excuse. They made their decision to end a man’s life from the comfort of their desks.
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No DNA should be an automatic “no death penalty”. What ever happened to reasonable doubt?
Here are details of the case in case anyone wants more info: State v. Williams :: 2003 :: Supreme Court of Missouri Decisions :: Missouri Case Law :: Missouri Law :: US Law :: Justia
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“Is human” works pretty well as an automatic “no death penalty” in most countries.
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The level of evidence required to find someone guilty of murder should be the same whether or not the death penalty is on the table. But I don’t think that it should ever be on the table.
I’ve sometimes been tempted to say that anyone who wants to have someone put to death should be so certain of the convict’s guilt that they would be willing to bet the lives of their own children on that fact. (After all, they’re willing to be the lives of other people’s children.) But it’s a moot point because the death penalty would still be wrong even if we could all be 1000% certain that no innocent person would ever be executed.
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True, but I had no objection to the death penalty when it came to James Byrd’s killers. One of whom expressed no remorse and said he’d do it all over again if he could.
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We live in a society where the political fallout for executing an innocent person is less consequential than the fallout for appearing “soft on crime.”
100% agreed. Much better to err on the side of caution. Sadly, 4 hours later, on BB:
Ozment had already served 10 years of a 40-year sentence for robbing churches, but was let out early. “It never should have happened,” said McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara. "He served approximately 10 years, was paroled out and then committed this horrible crime. He never should have gotten out, but he did.
Now, of course, there’s the obvious difference between these two defendants that I’m sure is the key explanation for difference in treatment here. But in general, what would it take for us to focus on “make fewer errors” instead of the ridiculous “don’t look soft” dynamic?
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Executing someone like him isn’t a punishment though, it’s for the satisfaction of those on the outside looking in. Which to me is not reason enough to execute someone, just keep them in jail and let them contemplate their life choices.
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Not just the governor. Both the Missouri Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court had a chance to grant a stay, and both declined. There are a lot of people here with blood on their hands.
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Last year the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that being factually innocent isn’t enough to overturn a sentence (!) so it would have been pretty surprising if they had granted a stay in this case.
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I don’t disagree that there are people whose absence makes the world a better place. But like everything else in our criminal justice system, the most awful outliers are used to justify the tools of cruelty and barbarism that are inevitably used on the vast majority of people caught up in the gears of the system who aren’t the most awful outliers.
That’s not a bug in our system, it’s the core function: American society might pretend to be horrified by inhumane jails every once in a while, but we love it when someone like Diddy or Weinstein gets tossed in there. We might not like it when someone innocent or sympathetic gets brutalized (or executed), but we sure as hell don’t hate it when it happens to someone unsympathetic. We didn’t end up with this system by accident.
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I see both tragedies as two sides of the same coin. In both cases the emphasis was on punishment for the convict rather than the good of society.
Williams’ execution served no purpose even if he was guilty, and Ozment’s time in prison focused on punishing him for his earlier crimes instead of preparing him to reintegrate into post-prison life as a peaceful or productive citizen.
If either of those men had been convicted in (for example) Norway then odds are that they’d be alive and living non-violent lives right now.
The problem is convincing Americans that we should want a system that is focused on helping reduce violent crime instead of a system that is focused on brutalizing criminals.
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“…except in an election year.”
