On Tuesday, Marcellus Williams, 55, was executed by lethal injection after being convicted of breaking into the home of Missouri woman Lisha Gayle in 1998 and stabbing her to death.
His 24 years on death row and subsequent execution are marred with controversy: Williams’ attorney questioned jury selection at his trial as well as the handling of evidence, which led to a clemency petition. The petition also emphasized the fact that both the prosecutor in the case as well as the victim’s family objected to the execution and instead wanted the death sentence commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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The outrage from Black folks online regarding Williams’ execution was palpable.
Ashley Yates, known as @brownblaze, pointed out on X that “Approximately 13% of the people in the U.S. are Black. Approximately 41% of the people on Death Row are Black...This isn’t injustice. This is bloodlust.”
Another X user, @_Zeets, wrote: “Why do they want to kill this man so much? It’s so unbelievably ghastly to want to take a life even with so many parties, including witnesses, coming out against this. What is the point of such barbarism?”
On X, @lzreads shared one of Williams’ poems with the caption: “May Khaliifah Williams rest in power and in perfect peace, may we honor him by resisting this anti-Black genocidal empire. I will sit with his words forever.”
Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson stood by the decision to execute Williams and hoped that his death would conclude a case that “languished for decades, revictimizing Ms. Gayle’s family over and over again,” according to Associated Press.
Williams got reprieves in 2015 and 2017 from execution. However, Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected his appeals in rapid succession Monday, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.
When Democratic U.S. representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted “We must abolish the death penalty” on Tuesday, X user @stillnotziora questioned the politician’s timing.
“In true politician fashion, [Ocasio-Cortez] said absolutely nothing about marcellus khalifah williams or his case until he passed and she could use his death as a political talking point,” they wrote.
Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to death in 2024 and the 100th since the state started using the death penalty again in 1989.
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