On the Death of Marcellus Williams, a Poet

The State of Missouri killed an innocent man today.

There is a host of evidence that Marcellus Williams was innocent. The prosecutor’s office asked for a new trial when DNA testing suggested he was innocent. One prosecutor admitted he’d struck a juror from the pool merely because he was Black like Marcellus was. The murder victim’s family asked that the sentence be changed to life in prison, but the governor refused clemency. Killing him was too important. The governor is pro-life. The Supreme Court could have granted an emergency stay, but thanks to the  pro-life majority, they refused. You know all of this if you’ve followed the case.

The Catholic Church forbids direct killing entirely. It is a mortal sin to kill a human being except as the side effect of an act of self-defense or defending another; such an act has to satisfy the strict criteria of the Principle of Double Effect.  You may not kill for vengeance. You may not kill as a warning to anyone else. You may not kill to teach the killer a lesson. You may only act with deadly force if it’s the only possible way to stop a killer. Because of these criteria, and because of how easy it is to keep a dangerous killer locked up for life in modern times, the Pope has declared that the death penalty is now entirely inadmissible. But if you are a practicing Catholic, you no doubt know that as well.

This doesn’t touch on the fact that Marcellus Williams was most likely not even a killer in the first place.

The man had been in prison for decades, awaiting his state-sponsored lynching all the time. Plenty of people who kill get out of prison in less than the twenty-four years that Marcellus was on death row.  But that still wasn’t enough, and  the state of Missouri had to kill him. His adult son came to watch him die. He was injected with poison at 6:01 Tuesday.  He was pronounced dead at 6:10. You probably also know that, if you’ve been following the case.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said, better, by somebody else?

Nothing at all except that it was wrong.

Here’s something you might not have heard. Did you know that Marcellus was a poet?

I didn’t until I saw this collection of his work.

“even now i can still feel the pride i felt then from this reflection

after knowing so much you revert to knowing nothing

i can’t imagine experiencing a state where it is so difficult to be able to recall something

-or afflicted with a condition where neural pathways have been completely shut off

this is one state in which it means to be lost…”

–from “Reflection of Dementia: Causes of Missing You (Grandfather)

 

“chirps

crickets

the pleasant but irregular blowing of the wind

fireflies dancing in step with the light of the moon

how strange it is to become aware of another’s heartbeat but forget one’s own –

finally love.”

–From “At Last… Another’s Heartbeat”

Let’s remember him as a poet.

May God have mercy on America.

Let’s not stop fighting to make this a more just world.

I usually share my tip jar down here, but if you’re so inclined, please donate to the Innocence Project.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.