• Why hasn’t President Joe Biden worked more intentionally to keep his 2020 campaign pledge to advance legislation to eliminate federal executions?
More than 70% of the world’s nations have rejected the death penalty in either law or practice, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. According to the center, America remains an outlier on the world stage, joining nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia and China that routinely carry out executions.
Currently, 27 American states retain capital punishment laws. And while only a handful of those states pursue the penalty with enthusiasm — states that execute do so routinely. Missouri is one of those states.
On Tuesday, the state executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection. He was killed over the objection of the prosecutor’s office that obtained his murder conviction. The surviving spouse of the murdered victim agreed with the prosecutor. Too much uncertainty about the fairness of the original trial lingered. The belated emergence of DNA evidence created enough doubt for the prosecution to create a plea deal with Williams, which would have reduced his death sentence to life in prison.
The deal didn’t fly. The Missouri Supreme Court refused to acknowledge the agreement, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declined a last-ditch appeal for clemency.
When Biden ran for president in 2020, he said he intended to abolish the federal death penalty. He said the decision was largely premised on the effort to counter the proven systemic unfairness of capital punishments, which disproportionately ensnares minorities and the poor. Biden said a federal abolition of the death penalty would further incentivize states to follow the lead of the federal government to end capital punishment.
