The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
On Sept. 24 an innocent man was executed by the state of Missouri. His name was Marcellus Williams, and he was wrongfully convicted of a 1998 break-in and murder. Despite prosecutors, members of the jury and relatives of the victim’s outcries, Gov. Mike Parson, the justices of the Missouri Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court all refused to halt Williams’ execution, otherwise known as refusal to grant a stay of execution.
Williams’ case is a tragic, unnecessary reminder of our racist, for-profit and grossly inefficient “justice” system. It is also a reminder that death penalty abolition ought to be at the center of our political landscape. Currently, the abolition of the death penalty exists as a hot-button issue that circulates across our Instagram stories for a few days when yet another person is about to be executed.
In our fast-paced and hyper-digital world, it is often virtually impossible for important issues to gain long-term attention in the limelight. As a result, very few social and political topics, albeit incredibly consequential, are publicly discussed long enough to apply tangible pressure on our elected leaders. The death penalty is no exception.
In this climate of minuscule attention spans, we lack the capacity to effectively organize around issues that do not permeate the election cycle at hand. Right now, the political landscape is dominated by reproductive rights, the cost of living and immigration, among a few others. It cannot be overstated that these topics should be of the utmost importance, and that there is a reason they dominate the current political climate. However, it begs the question of why, out of countless issues that pop in and out of the spotlight, so few actually remain. It is paramount that we create space for and demand other issues to be addressed by our elected officials, especially candidates up for election.
We cannot wait until the 11th hour of a state-sanctioned execution to speak out. While a change.org petition or a Tweet by Kim Kardashian is certainly done in good faith, it is simply not enough. We cannot forget that just four years ago, the election cycle was dominated by calls for the eradication of systemic racism and criminal justice reform. This includes the eradication of the death penalty, or judicial murder. Just because our political candidates are not being held accountable for these issues does not mean that we cannot hold them accountable. Through coalition building and collective action, we create the political climate in which we want to operate. Organizations like The Innocence Project, Amnesty International and Death Penalty Action are among a myriad of others that have been working for decades to build grassroots coalitions that advocate for the abolition of capital punishment.
We must do better in widening the scope of our political world. While we should continue to share petitions, call our elected officials and spread awareness about upcoming executions, we cannot let that be all we do. We must uplift organizations like those aforementioned and begin to shift the landscape to consistently incorporate death penalty abolition into our political demands.
Alice Still is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Alana Parker, Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Charlie Mennuti, and Ella Rousseau. Fact checking done by Luna Jinks and Sasha Dafkova.
