#Missouri Supreme Court

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jazsmin Halliburton and Matthew Sanders at KMIZ:

The Missouri Supreme Court has overturned a lower court decision that would have removed a question on legalizing abortion from the November ballot. The court heard arguments Tuesday morning and Chief Justice Mary Russell issued a decision a little after 2 p.m. Tuesday. The judges voted by majority to reverse Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh's decision, issued last week. The court ordered Tuesday that the question should appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. Amendment 3, which covers abortion, was certified by the Secretary of State's Office after thousands of petition signatures. The initiative petition that was used to get access to abortion on the ballot received over 380,000 signatures. The amendment would guarantee a right to an abortion until fetal viability.

Rachel Sweet with Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group that led the petition drive to get the question on the ballot, said in a statement the decision is a "victory for democracy and reproductive freedom in Missouri." “This ruling is a validation of the more than 380,000 Missourians who signed the petition," the statement says. "This fight was not just about this amendment—it was about defending the integrity of the initiative petition process and ensuring that Missourians can shape their future directly. The Missouri Republican Party called the decision "devastating." "This ruling marks the most dangerous threat to Missouri's pro-life laws in our state's history," the party says in a statement. "Make no mistake -- this amendment, bankrolled by radical out-of-state interest groups, is a direct assault on Missouri families and the values we hold dear."

[fspgrad]

This man is about to be executed. He’s innocent. | Marcellus Williams

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

For pregnant women in abusive marriages, leaving their is spouse already a difficult decision. Their escape is made even harder in the four states that prevent them from getting a divorce.

Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas all have laws that mandate women seeking a divorce to disclose if they are pregnant, and prohibit judges from finalizing the divorce if they are. No such law exists in Arizona, but judges in practice still will not finalize the divorce of a pregnant woman, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

In Missouri, a law from 1973 requires couples to disclose “whether the wife is pregnant" while filing, and the two must finalize "any arrangements for the custody and support of the children." Justices count the gestating fetus as a child, and have therefore interpreted the law to mean until the pregnancy is finished.

Democratic state Rep. Ashley Aune introduced House Bill 2402 earlier this year, which would remove restrictions around divorcing while pregnant. Aune recently told NPR that "I don't honestly feel very hopeful" about its chance of passing in the Republican-dominated state legislature, but she said she felt compelled to try after hearing harrowing stories from survivors of domestic violence.

"How can you look that person in the eye and say, 'No, I think you should stay with that person,'" Aune said. "That's wild to me."

Activists say that the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 left pregnant women in abusive relationships with even less control over their lives, and less access to vital resources. Marium Durrani, vice president of policy for the National Domestic Violence Hotline told the outlet that the group received a 100% call increase in the year following the ruling.

"We're seeing lots more people citing reproductive coercion, sexual coercion, reproductive abuse, or pregnancy coercion as part of their experience," she said. "I mean, we are getting calls that are very explicitly like 'I am pregnant.' 'I am trying to escape.' 'I cannot get resources where I am or in my state or my locality.'"

If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence, there is help available. The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 800-799-7233. Other resources can be found here.

[paranormeow7]

the death penalty is lynching. they lynched marcellus williams over the murder of a white woman, which he did not commit. her family knew he was innocent, and now there won’t be justice for her. my state murdered an innocent man instead of finding the real killer. what’s kamala harris gonna do about this one? what will the democrats do about this?

[fromkenari]

If carried out as planned, the executions in Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas will mark the first time in more than 20 years—since July 2003—that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

As for how they are being killed, you need to know about this:

Alabama on Thursday is preparing to carry out the nation’s second execution ever using nitrogen gas after becoming the first state to use the new procedure in January. Alan Miller is set to die by the process in which a mask is placed over the inmate’s head that forces the inmate to inhale pure nitrogen.

Khalil Allah and Marcellus Williams both had substantial evidence that they were innocent.

Travis Mullis and Emmanuel Littlejohn are both victims of horrific childhood trauma, violence, and abuse, with Mullis being particularly vulnerable from his mental health state, who even decided to waive his right to a stay of execution.

Alan Miller and Khalil Allah both attempted to be executed previously, and their executioners failed.

None of these men deserve to die this way. Abolish the death penalty.

[thashining]

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[billhader]

🫡🫡🫡 the vast amount of grief and sorrow we as people are expected to suppress on a daily basis in order to keep the machine moving is becoming more and more unbearable every day 🫡🫡🫡

[uboat53]

You might assume that keeping a man who's been proven innocent in a court of law in prison would violate the Bill of Rights but, according the State of Missouri, you'd be wrong.

We should all hope that the US Supreme Court finds otherwise, this case should be as open and shut as any that has ever been filed.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David A. Lieb and Jim Salter at AP, via HuffPost:

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for breaking into a woman’s home and killing her, despite calls by her family and the prosecutor’s office that put him on death row to let him serve out the rest of his life in prison. Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was repeatedly stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams’ hopes of having his sentence commuted to life in prison suffered dual setbacks Monday when, almost simultaneously, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied him clemency and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to grant him a stay of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Tuesday. Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole. “The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.” Last month, Gayle’s relatives gave their blessings to an agreement between the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in prison. But acting on an appeal from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s Office, the state Supreme Court nullified the agreement.

Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening. Gayle, 42, was a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into her home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the shower running and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

[...] Tuesday marked the third time Williams had faced execution. He was less than a week away from lethal injection in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court called it off, allowing time for his attorneys to pursue additional DNA testing. Williams was hours from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay. Greitens appointed a panel of retired judges to examine the case. But that panel never reached a conclusion. Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.

Marcellus Williams was unjustly executed last night at the prison in Bonne Terre, MO.

See Also:

The Guardian: Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors’ push to overturn conviction

[iselenris]

his names is Kahliifa!!

he converted to Islam refer to him correctly.

Poem by Marcellus Williams

source

call script to urge the state not to kill him

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A bill that would add child sex trafficking and statutory rape to the crimes eligible for the death penalty was debated Monday in a Missouri Senate committee — despite conflicting with U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The legislation is sponsored by state Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican who said Monday that one of the “principal purposes of government” is to “punish evil.”

Rape of children under 14 and child trafficking of children under 12 would be crimes eligible for the death penalty under his bill.

“And what’s more evil than taking the innocence of the child during the act of a rape? Children are in large part defenseless and an act such as rape can kill the child emotionally,” he said.

“And so I believe a just consequence, after a reasonable opportunity for defense, is death.”

The Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard the bill Monday.

State Sen. Karla May, a Democrat from St. Louis, pointed to Moon’s stance of “believing in life” as an outspoken opponent of abortion without exception for rape or incest, yet supporting expanding the death penalty.

“A 12 year old who gets pregnant, you believe that she should bring that child in the world, am I correct?” May asked.

“What crime did that child, that developing human child, commit to deserve death?” Moon replied.

“…But you believe in killing the father to that child?” May asked, if the father is a rapist.

“Yes,” Moon said. “If an attacker commits a heinous crime such as the ones that I mentioned in this presentation, I believe that if they’re charged and convicted, absolutely.”

The Rev. Timothy Faber testified in support of Moon’s bill, pointing to the “lifelong repercussions” of child rape and trafficking.

“It’s also a well established fact that those who commit sexual crimes seldom if ever change their ways,” he said. “Once a sexual offender, always a sexual offender.”

Elyse Max, co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, opposed the bill during Monday’s hearing.

“If the goal is to overturn established U.S. Supreme Court precedent, it’s far from a guarantee,” Max said, “and the amount of resources the state of Missouri would have to spend as well as the trauma to child victims during the process cannot be understated.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in the 2008 case Kennedy v. Louisiana ruled giving the death penalty to those convicted of child rape violates the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment unless the crime results in the victim’s death or is intended to. Only homicide and a narrow set of “crimes against the state” can be punishable by death, the court ruled.

“Adding statutory rape and trafficking as death-eligible crimes are a slippery slope,” Max said, “of expanding the death penalty to non-murder crimes that would bring the constitutionality of Missouri’s death penalty into doubt.”

“Instead of spending millions of dollars to possibly change long-standing precedent, Missouri resources should be spent to protect children from abuse in the first place, and ensure survivors have access to mental health treatment and proper support, following the offense,” Max said.

Moon said, regarding the Supreme Court precedent, that it’s worth challenging.

“That’s something that we need to start the conversation about,” he said, “and those things need to be challenged.”

Florida passed a similar law for victims of rape under age 12 last year. It received bipartisan support. In December, prosecutors in that state announced they’d seek the death penalty in a case of a man accused of sexually abusing a child.

Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis has said the state’s bill could lead the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Mary Fox, director of Missouri State Public Defender, which provides defense for the majority of death penalty cases in the state, argued Monday that the death penalty is “no deterrent to a crime.”

Fox also noted that an 18 year old dating a 14 year old could be executed under Moon’s legislation because that would be considered statutory rape.

Mei Hall, a resident of Columbia who also said she was a victim of sexual abuse, also testified in opposition.

“I don’t wish my abuser death,” Hall said. “I wish them to be sequestered away and unable to harm more people, for sure. But I don’t think it’s the state’s place to kill people in general and I don’t think it’s the state’s place to make it more difficult for child victims to come forward.”

Lobbyists from Empower Missouri and Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also testified against the bill. A lobbyist from ArmorVine, testified in support.

Missouri was one of only five states to carry out death sentences last year, along with Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama. There are two executions scheduled for this year.

Three House bills filed this year would eliminate the state’s death penalty, but none has made it to a committee hearing.

[iguessweallcrazyithinktho]

Remember Khaliifah Marcellus Williams! A black Muslim man falsely accused. Remember that he's innocent. Remember that the governor of Missouri, mike Parson who had the opportunity to save this man's life, decided not to. Remember all but three supreme court justices decided his life wasn't worth saving either. Remember his face. Remember his Last words. And remember how fucked up this country is

Rest in peace Marcellus

[trendynewsnow]

New Legal Challenge to Mifepristone Regulations by Conservative States

New Lawsuit Challenges Abortion Pill Mifepristone Regulations A renewed legal battle has emerged over the abortion pill mifepristone, as a lawsuit that the Supreme Court dismissed earlier this year has been reintroduced with new complexities. This case, spearheaded by the conservative attorneys general of Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas, targets the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is filed in…

[cyarsk5230]

no! Are YOU stupid?! A Dem DA wanted it stopped. He was overruled by a REPUBLICAN attorney general; a REPUBLICAN state Supreme Court; a REPUBLICAN governor; and six REPUBLICANS on the US Supreme Court.