On Tuesday, September 24, the state of Missouri executed Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams by lethal injection. He was sentenced to the death penalty for alleged first-degree murder, robbery, and burglary; however, according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit representing people who are unjustly incarcerated, he faced a discriminatory trial based on unfounded claims. There was no forensic evidence linking Williams to the crime scene, only the unreliable testimony of two incentivized witnesses, and six out of seven potential Black jurors were removed from his trial. Advocates of Williams say the blatant racial bias in this case is not an isolated incident, but rather reflects the tragic realities of many people of color in the American criminal justice system. A 2022 report by the National Registry of Exonerations found that Black people are seven timesmore likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than white people. Additionally, in Williams’ case, he was accused of killing a white woman—a dynamic with even more statistical disparity. Millions of people opposed the execution, including the victim’s family, Williams’ former prosecutor, and Missouri’s previous governor, who offered a stay of execution. However, current Governor Mike Parson actively shut down investigations into Williams’ innocence and allowed the execution to occur; six out of nine Supreme Court justices also supported it.
Khaliifah Williams maintained his innocence throughout his 24 years on death row. A devout scholar of Islam, he acted as the imam for Muslim inmates at his prison. He also devoted much of his time to writing poetry, once saying “it’s a way for me to express myself and communicate to be understood.” Williams wrote the following poem, “At last…Another’s heartbeat,” about his loneliness during incarceration:
At last…Another’s heartbeat
the silhouettes of their bond visible still at the last glow of the sun
they experience each other and the life of the night as it begins to stir
standing there in silence holding hands
no rush to go back inside
there is so much beauty and comfort in being in love and just being…
– amidst sounds of buzzing
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.
Members of The Echo had a roundtable discussion regarding Khaliifah Williams, hosted by Ella-Devi (‘25) and Ocean (‘26). The discussion happened to coincide with World Day Against the Death Penalty, which occurs annually on October 10.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
SCOTUS
EDW: Six out of nine of the Republican-controlled SCOTUS voted against a grant stay of execution. This grant would have extended his stay in jail, postponing his state murder until they could have proven his possible innocence. The vote was split against partisan lines. Does this change or reinforce your opinion about SCOTUS in any way?
Astrid (‘25): In recent years, I haven’t had that much respect for SCOTUS, so it doesn’t exactly change how I feel about the Supreme Court, but it reinforces my belief that having justices for life is too much power to give to nine people. Even though there are not only doubts about someone’s guilt but almost proof of their innocence, so many people’s questions, concerns, and investigations can be [overruled]. … Six out of nine people are more valuable than all of the other lawyers and all of the citizens of the United States. That doesn’t seem fair. Also, when you’re convicting someone of a crime, the jury has to be unanimous that they’re guilty or innocent, but when the Supreme Court voted not to give a stay of execution, that only had to be a majority. I think if anything, when someone’s life is on the line and the death penalty is about to happen, there’s no reason that that should be based on majority, whereas the initial conviction was unanimous.
Oliver (‘26): I think it further speaks to problems with the death penalty that government officials were the ones in control when so many spoke out against the execution of Khaliifah—the fact that the governor and SCOTUS could be the ones to make the decision when there are so few of them. The death penalty in general is unethical, but I think it becomes especially even more unethical when the only people who can decide are these people who have so much power.
Gareth (‘26): SCOTUS’s job is to rule things based on the Constitution, and they didn’t do that because they violated the Sixth Amendment: the right to a fair trial. In theory, you have to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for a criminal trial. But oftentimes, if you are Black or poor, the system can be guilty until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. The Sixth Amendment, which SCOTUS didn’t uphold, exists to prevent exactly this kind of race-based bias from actually holding weight in court.
Death Penalty
EDW: Khaliifah Williams, a Black man, was convicted of capital punishment for the murder of a white woman. In what instances do you think the death penalty is acceptable, if any?
Arianna (‘25): I have a very difficult relationship with the death penalty. I think that the underlying problem is that so many people are incarcerated because we don’t have proper mental rehabilitation places and we don’t have enough of them. As you stated before, there are so many incidents of racial-based bias and disparities in these convictions … I don’t personally agree with [the death penalty] in most cases and in this case it seemed like they were pushing it through very quickly and with this, I don’t see how you disregard taking time. They were treating it as “guilty until proven innocent,” like he had to be proven completely exonerated for them to push the execution. If you arrest someone wrongfully and you find out after 24 years and you release it, that’s one huge embarrassment and wrongdoing. If you kill someone and then afterwards new evidence comes to light, there’s no undoing that … you’re killing someone without proper cause. I have very, very big limitations on when I think the death penalty can be used and I don’t think I could ever sit on a jury and sentence someone to death. I don’t think I could deal with that.
EDW: You mentioned rehabilitation—Khaliifah Williams did a huge 180 to his life while he was in prison. Before, he had suffered sexual abuse and he had committed a number of crimes, but in prison, he served as an imam for other prisoners and he wrote poetry. He was a very comforting figure to others in prison.
AC: To add on to Arianna, I think when people talk about the death penalty and being for the death penalty, a lot of the arguments are about school shooters or really, really horrific crimes, and I don’t personally believe that there is anyone who would ever “deserve” the death penalty. I can never support it legally because my opinion shouldn’t be the reason behind whether someone lives or dies. I think everyone should have the right to be alive. And I just think that it’s impossible, especially with so much racism and the history of mistakes and killing innocent people with the death penalty, I could never support giving that power to the government.
Eli (‘25): I think the death penalty can never be humane. Specifically in lethal injections, doctors are never involved because of the “do no harm” [pledge in the Hippocratic Oath]. One of the descriptions said “it feels like there’s fire in your veins for ten minutes and you’re suffocating and then you die, if you’re lucky.” There was one case where a state was illegally sourcing drugs so that they could kill their inmates, and there was another case where one guy didn’t die for three hours because they did it wrong. So it could just never be right, because we can’t involve medical professionals. And I just think we shouldn’t do it.
Legality of the Trial
OH: In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), the NAACP wrote “Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man. Governor Parson had the responsibility to save this innocent life, and he didn’t. The NAACP was founded in 1909 in response to the barbaric lynching of Black people in America—we were founded exactly because of people like Governor Parson who perpetuate violence against innocent Black people. We will hold Governor Parson accountable. When DNA evidence proves innocence, capital punishment is not justice—it is murder.” How do you respond to this?
Aidana (‘27): I think it’s true. If DNA evidence proved that Khaliifah wasn’t the one who murdered the woman, I don’t think he should be held responsible for actions that he possibly couldn’t have done. As somebody said, murder is a permanent thing. If there is a mistake, there’s no bringing them back. And so if there’s even the tiniest bit of evidence suggesting that somebody is innocent, then I think that they shouldn’t be held to that and should instead see further evidence, because innocent until proven guilty.
AC: One thing that I find really upsetting is that usually when you think of murder, you think of one person or multiple people breaking the law to get what they want. But in this case it’s almost the opposite, as if people can work with the law to put their personal biases and their personal, in my opinion, wish to kill this person over evidence and what a lot of people see as moral law.
OG: Someone mentioned earlier that they completely rushed the trial and did a “guilty until proven innocent” thing. To add on to that, there really was no evidence that was pointed to Khaliifah. They continuously said that there was no way to disprove that he had DNA that placed him at the scene of the crime, but they couldn’t find DNA that he was there at all because they had intentionally contaminated it by having a ton of other people touch it without gloves. And then they continuously refuse to push it back. It was so clearly intentionally targeted towards him because of his race or because of anti-Muslim bias. They were just outwardly refusing to look at the evidence so blatantly placed in front of them. Also, I don’t remember who said it, but someone fully said, “yeah, I of course I intentionally kicked that juror off because they were Black.” There is no way to look at this and not see very clearly that they did it because he was Black, because he was Muslim.
AB: I was reading the governor’s response to all of the backlash on this, and he kept just saying “there was no DNA evidence that proved he wasn’t there”; that is the opposite of how our legal system works. And I watched the prosecutor who actually stepped back and called for a stay of execution, in exchange for life, without parole. He said that it got to a point where he had a reasonable doubt and the victim’s family did not want him executed. So what is the rush, first of all, and more importantly, why would you go about this? There are not many people rooting for it. … I had heard some talk of people saying “Well, if he was innocent, why would he agree to life without parole?” And I think that’s a huge oversight on what’s at stake, if it’s between execution and life without parole. But for me, there’s enough reasonable doubt to think that his conviction in the first place was wrong, let alone an execution. There has to be zero possibility [of guilt].
Two-Party System
OH: In the leadup to the election, Democrats have actually dropped opposition to the death penalty from their platform, which they previously emphasized in 2020. Neither Harris nor Trump have spoken out about what happened to Khaliifah Williams. How does this make you feel about the two-party system and leadership in our country?
AZ: I think the two-party system was a mistake because our country, especially during election times, is so divided between one faction or the other, when the entire point of the United States was to be “united.” Having two opposite factions is really damaging to society, because people feel like it’s either one or the other and there’s no in-between or better choice. Independent parties [do exist but rarely ever win].
GR: The two-party system can also be really disenfranchising because you’re basically pigeonholing people into two massive corporate conglomerates that they have to pick between, and you’re also forcing division within those because you have the more moderate wing of the party and have the more extreme wing of the party. Often, the more extreme wing is louder and takes over slowly. If we had more parties, those more extreme wings would remain fringe, and it would also be significantly easier for the people to find a party that they really identify with. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are massive machines, and they pick a candidate that oftentimes does not speak for the interest of all of their constituents. A political party should pick a candidate that speaks for all of its constituents; you can’t do that effectively with the two-party system, because people will have so many varying opinions, and there are so many different degrees of how far left or right you are. I just think there should be more parties so that we can better delineate.
Potential Reforms
EDW: Let’s end it with this question: What reforms, if any, do you think are necessary to prevent wrongful executions from happening in the future? Think as big as you want.
Anthony (‘26): I think we should either completely get rid of or severely limit the death penalty; it’s completely unnecessary, and we might be better off with it not existing.
AB: I agree with that. I think there might be arguments for people who want retribution in the most extreme of cases, and I try to understand what the victims’ families are going through, but I could not be on the jury sentencing someone to die. I don’t think I could live with myself doing that for any reason.
OH: It’s coming to the end of the period; thank you all for coming and speaking on this case. Rest in power, Khaliifah.
EDW: I hope he didn’t suffer.