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Source: Marcellus Williams legal team / Marcellus Williams
The execution of Khaliifah Ibn Rayford Daniels, also known as Marcellus Williams, in Missouri despite evidence has sparked a wave of outrage and reactions online.
On Tuesday (September 24), the state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, also known as Khaliifah Ibn Rayford Daniels by lethal injection. Williams, who was convicted in 1998 for the murder of Felicia “Lisha” Gayle in her St. Louis home, had been fighting for his exoneration but his pleas were turned down by Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the Supreme Court against a stay of execution.
“The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with finality over truth, justice, and humanity,” said Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project. Bushnell served as Williams’ lawyer. Williams converted to Islam during his time in prison, reaffirming his faith with his final words.
Williams, 55, had received two stays of execution in 2015 and 2017 but his conviction was not thrown out. “Marcellus Williams should be alive today,” said local prosecutor Wesley Bell in a statement. “There were multiple points in the timeline when decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty.” Bell filed a 63-page motion to overturn the conviction in January, after reviewing his case and determining that there was a miscarriage of justice using a law enacted in the state in 2021.
Other elements such as the state improperly rejecting Black jurors resulting in a predominately white jury with one Black member (Gayle was white), the DNA evidence on the murder weapon cited by prosecutors as Williams’ was found to not match, shed more light on Williams’ case as noted by anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean in a post thread on X, formerly Twitter.
The execution of Marcellus Williams is a horrible injustice. This didn’t have to happen. Just a couple weeks ago, prosecutors—with the support of the victim’s family—had reached a plea agreement with Marcellus that took death off the table.
— Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) September 24, 2024
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Thousands rallied to petition for Williams not to be executed, resulting in bundles of petitions being delivered to Governor Parson’s office in addition to calls and faxes. Gayle’s own family issued a statement calling for the state not to execute Williams, which was cited in his clemency petition. “The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.” The aftermath left many angry and dismayed, particularly online where many expressed their thoughts. Some also noted how Mark and Patricia McCloskey, two white lawyers who menaced Black Lives Matter protestors with guns outside their home in 2020, were pardoned by Parson with no delays.
1. Preston Mitchum
2. Ernest Owens
3. Ibram X. Kendi
4. Amanda BW
6. Shahem aka Dr. Durag
7. Representative Cori Bush
8. GN Cordova
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The Supreme Court’s ruling on the claim of immunity by former President Donald Trump was condemned in a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and President Joe Biden afterward.
The nation was rocked on Monday (July 1), as the Supreme Court issued its ruling on former President Donald Trump’s claims of absolute immunity for his actions in office. The vote was 6 – 3, as all of the conservative justices including Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that Trump was entitled to absolute immunity for acts carried out in his official capacity as president, but also ruled that not all of those acts were official. The ruling was seen as a major win for Trump as his trial to determine his role in the events leading up to the January 6 insurrection will now not take place until after the November presidential elections.
The three liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented, with Sotomayor delivering a blistering opinion underscoring the severity of what took place. “Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency,” Sotomayor wrote, pointedly criticizing their conservative colleagues and Roberts, who authored the ruling. “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.” She would end the dissent with “The indictment paints a stark portrait of a President desperate to stay in power. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.”
Sotomayor’s opinion also called out how the majority – including Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Comey Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh – didn’t offer clear guidelines as to what is deemed official. President Joe Biden issued a nationwide address on Monday evening noting that “America will have to render a judgment about Donald Trump’s behavior” and said the ruling “almost certainly means that there are almost no limits to what the president can do. “This is a fundamentally new principle,” Biden said. “It’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law.” Biden also highlighted the danger apparent if Trump returns to office in November urging people to vote for democracy, stating that he “will be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.”
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A second home belonging to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was found flying a flag supporting the January 6th rioters.
According to reports, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was flying another flag that was carried by rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, at a vacation home that he owned in New Jersey. The flag, captured in photographs, was an “Appeal To Heaven” flag which is also known as the Pine Tree flag. It was on view as late as last year, when the Supreme Court weighed a decision on when to prosecute January 6 rioters, according to neighbors in the area on Long Beach Island where the home is located.
The “Appeal To Heaven” flag, which was first flown in the Revolutionary War by the forces of General George Washington, shows a green pine tree on a white background with the phrase “An Appeal To Heaven” inspired by British philosopher John Locke’s “right to revolution” – which encourages violence as a means – doctrine on it. It had fallen out of usage for many years until the last decade when it had become a symbol primarily for “a theological vision of what the United States should be and how it should be governed,” according to Institute of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies scholar Matthew Taylor. The flag has recently been seen in the office of House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and has been promoted by Dutch Sheets, a man who was prominent in helping to further former President Donald Trump’s false claims of the 2020 presidential election being stolen.
The news comes days after Alito’s denial that he was responsible for flying the U.S. flag in reverse at his home in Virginia after the January 6 insurrection, which was reported by the New York Times. The conservative Supreme Court Justice has been under fire for leaking the decision that would overturn Roe V. Wade, as well as selling Bud Light stock as the company dealt with right-wing backlash over working with a trans influencer. There have been calls from Democrats in Congress for Alito to be censured for his actions, and for him to recuse himself from any January 6-related cases including the question of immunity for Donald Trump concerning his involvement in the events of January 6.
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A report reveals that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has received more secret gifts from billionaire donors including 38 vacations.
The new report details the massive amount of gifts of luxury travel that Thomas has received over three decades including 38 lavish destination vacations. These trips include 26 private jet flights and eight helicopter trips. Other gifts included VIP passes to college and professional sporting events, and an open invitation to a super-exclusive golf club perched on the Atlantic coast known as “The Floridian”.
These gifts have reportedly come from an array of billionaires, including Harlan Crow, who has been in the news constantly after it was discovered that he bestowed Thomas with numerous gifts in the form of private flights and purchasing his mother’s home in Georgia. Other billionaire donors include former Berkshire Hathaway executive David Sokol and the late H. Wayne Huizenga, the man behind national chains Blockbuster and Waste Management whom he met through the exclusive nonprofit Horatio Alger Association. Another, oil magnate Paul “Tony” Novelly, is another donor noted in the report.
The report goes on in detail about the extent that these donors gave to Thomas, and how they benefited from being in proximity to him. One example shows that the Supreme Court Justice granted the Horatio Alger Association unprecedented access to the court for members in its Great Hall as a way to fundraise for the group – going against explicit judiciary guidelines. Another instance describes Sokol addressing a group of former association scholarship recipients, and making a direct reference to a case that was before the Supreme Court concerning President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program.
“In my career, I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served on the committee that reports judicial financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.” The news adds to more controversy surrounding Thomas, as his financial disclosures on record do not contain any of this information.
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