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This State Is Disturbingly Comfortable in Killing
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This State Is Disturbingly Comfortable in Killing

A system with such low regard for life warrants total interruption.

Prem Thakker's avatar
Prem Thakker
Sep 26, 2024
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This State Is Disturbingly Comfortable in Killing
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Marcellus Williams. Photo: Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty/TNS via Reuters.

Four human beings were put to death in the US this week. One more is set to be killed Thursday night. It will be the most executions carried out in a seven-day period in more than 20 years — and mark 1600 since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

And those pulling the lever appear disturbingly confident in their capacities to do so.

Marcellus Williams, a Missouri man convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for a 1998 murder, maintained his innocence from the beginning. Doubts of his guilt sprung from everywhere amid concerns of biased jury selection and a lack of DNA evidence connecting him to the crime. His lawyers, the NAACP, even the prosecution and members of the victim’s family, among others, all requested clemency for Williams.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson and the Missouri state Supreme Court shunned these efforts; Parson even actively shut down an inquiry board re-examining whether Williams was innocent. In the final minutes before Williams was set to be executed Tuesday, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against staying the execution — the same make-up as when the “pro-life” conservative branch of the court overturned abortion rights. In both cases then, the ideological throughline was not about protecting the sacredness of life (in any interpretation), but asserting mortal control.

Indeed, not only does the state deputize itself to decide who gets to live, it does so with little scruple. Its upper echelons maintain a self-assured low regard for human life and an accompanied high commitment to state violence. Not only are these officials (elected or not) comfortable at a basic level determining the fate of a life — an entire universe of existence — they also feel comfortable doing so even when there is a shred of doubt regarding one’s "guilt” apparently necessitating such a cruel act.

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