Marcellus Williams was murdered on Tuesday, Sept. 24 by the state of Missouri, despite mounting evidence indicating that he may have been wrongfully convicted of murder. Williams’ case highlights the necessity of abolishing the death penalty in the United States. Capital punishment is nothing more than legally sanctioned murder and defending it under the guise that those being executed deserve to die does not make it morally justifiable.
This is especially the case because, as reported by the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 200 people since 1973 were exonerated after their execution, including four in Missouri. In other words, more than 200 innocent people have been murdered because legislators find it acceptable to continue upholding the morally reprehensible concept of capital punishment.
In defense of the death penalty, its proponents frame it as retribution; they use the logic of “an eye for an eye” to make it seem deserved, but they forget that “an eye for an eye makes the world go blind.” Killing is killing, no matter who the perpetrators and victims are. It is wrong when a criminal murders innocent people, and it is wrong when state and federal governments murder criminals.
In the U.S., the death penalty is not just used, but used persistently–it is one of just eleven countries in the world that repeatedly sentenced people to death between 2018 and 2022, as reported by Amnesty International in 2022. Specifically, the death penalty is relentlessly given to innocent people of color. The DPIC has found that two-thirds of executed individuals who were exonerated after their execution were POC, and over half of the total individuals exonerated after their execution were Black.
It is clear who the justice system fails when this is coupled with the fact that in 2022 the National Registry of Exonerations found Black people to be seven and a half times more likely than white people to be wrongfully convicted of murder, and 80% more likely to be innocent than others convicted of murder. By continuing to allow capital punishment, the government is upholding a system of punishment that disproportionately affects POC.
The U.S. is also the only Western democracy that still sentences people to death. As of a 2023 report by Amnesty International, 112 countries in total have completely abolished the death penalty. The U.S. is one of only 55 countries in which it is still legal, with some of the others being Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. America and the 54 other countries are carrying out a human rights abuse.
As nations across the world have moved to abolish capital punishment in recent years–like Equatorial Guinea, Zambia and Ghana–the United Nations has called on the U.S. time and time again to finally put an end to its use of the death penalty. However, only 23 states have altogether abolished the death penalty, and, federally, there is nothing more than an easily lifted moratorium–or temporary prohibition–on federal executions.
The moratorium was imposed in 2021 by President Joe Biden, despite him having promised that he would completely do away with federal death sentences. He made this promise because former President Donald Trump and his administration showed the world how easily power can be abused when 13 people were federally executed within the last six months of his presidency.
Instead of adopting the total abolition of the death penalty though, the U.S. has instead moved towards even more inhumane executions. When Alabama failed to execute Kenneth Smith by way of legal injection, the state decided to use him as a guinea pig for death by nitrogen gas in January of this year. According to CNN, he is the first inmate in the world to be killed in such a manner. Experts say nitrogen hypoxia can be torturous and cause excessive pain, and witnesses described his execution as the “most horrible thing” they had ever seen.
Life without parole is a much more suitable punishment. It guarantees that innocent people will not be executed, while also subjecting those rightfully convicted to appropriate sentences that condemn them for the suffering they caused. The death penalty is deplorable and needs to be ended in the U.S. and beyond. The world cannot go blind.
