From Marcellus Williams to Reform: Why Democrats Must Reignite the Fight Against the Death Penalty
Protesters at the vigil of Dustin Higgs, an inmate executed by the US government after being sentenced as an accomplice to murder. Photo courtesy of Felton Davis.
On September 24, 2024, Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, a Black man convicted of murder. Since his execution, there has been intense doubt surrounding the crime, as there was no conclusive DNA evidence found linking Williams to the murder weapon. His execution, which condemned him to an irreversible fate based on inconclusive evidence, illustrates the myriad issues with the death penalty in America.
The death penalty is an issue on which many on the ideological right and left agree, given that its support across party lines is at a historical low. Yet, when the Democratic National Committee released their official party platform in August, it included no mention of a goal to abolish the death penalty. The DNC had previously included mention of the death penalty in platforms set for the last two election cycles. Whether this change reflected the Democrats’ pivot toward the center or simply a value reassessment by the party as a whole, it was a grave misstep. Democrats must double down on this issue and advocate abolishing the death penalty on the politically viable grounds that it is cost-inefficient, unreliable, and a possible bipartisan issue. If Democrats can effectively campaign on these issues, they may render state-sanctioned execution an institution of the past.
The Democratic Party first mentioned abolishing the death penalty in their official party platform in 2016. In addition to crime deterrence and reliability, the platform lambasted the death penalty for its cost inefficiency. For example, it costs Maryland an additional $1.8 million on average to execute a prisoner than to sentence them to life in prison without parole. In California, death penalty cases from 1978–2011 cost taxpayers an additional $121.2 million per year compared to life-without-parole sentences, and nationwide, the death penalty is the costliest component of the criminal justice system on a per-offender basis.
In addition to its cost inefficiency, the judicial application of the death penalty is arbitrary. For instance, one study found that elected state supreme court justices in Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio affirmed death penalty cases twice as often during election years than in other years and granted clemency more frequently in non-election years. Instead of carrying out justice, these rulings serve to consolidate the judiciary’s political power. The inconsistency in the death penalty’s application highlights the urgent need for reform since the inconsistency compounds the defects in its execution.
Despite the general public’s support for the death penalty for moral reasons, there is significant political feasibility for its repeal, on the grounds that the punishment is racially biased, does not deter crime, and risks executing innocent people. According to a 2021 Pew Research study, while 64% of Americans believe that killing someone for a crime like murder is morally justifiable, 56% believe sentencing is racially biased against Black people. Since 1973, at least 200 people who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the US have been exonerated, 108 of whom are Black.
The staggering number of exonerations is in line with another prevailing majority opinion. According to the same Pew study, 78% of Americans believe that the death penalty involves some risk that an innocent person will be put to death. Moreover, 63% of Americans believe that the death penalty does not deter people from committing serious crimes, and there is no conclusive data that the death penalty is a serious deterrent. Unless the US can design a flawless death penalty with no practical weaknesses, the Democrats need not debate its moral validity because the punishment’s glaring deficiencies lend enough credence to the idea that it should be abolished.
Finally, Democrats, at the federal level, should rely on the growing bipartisan, national consensus for abolishing the death penalty. In 2021, three Republicans in Virginia’s House of Delegates voted against their party to repeal the death penalty, and one poll revealed that 36% of Virginia Republicans supported repeal. In 2019, the New Hampshire House and Senate voted as a supermajority against the death penalty, with Republican State Senator Bob Guida calling the death penalty a “ghastly” practice at odds with his pro-life views. In 2016 and 2017, Republicans represented nearly one-third of the sponsors for death penalty repeal efforts in state legislatures, and, as of 2021, a record low of 77% of Republicans favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder, a seven point decrease since 2019, reflecting the recent shifting of Republicans against the death penalty nationwide. Whether these votes stem from pro-life sentiments or a lack of trust in the government’s ability to execute the death penalty effectively, they nonetheless provide concrete support for the proposition that Democrats have a bipartisan base they can rely on to legalize abolition.
In light of the death penalty’s cost inefficiency and general arbitrariness, Democrats should return to their previous anti-death penalty stance. To raise general voter interest in death penalty reform, Democrats can couch this issue into larger conversations on criminal justice reform, linking it to broader efforts to reduce mass incarceration, promote rehabilitation through restorative justice, and eliminate racial bias in the system. By framing abolition as part of a comprehensive reform agenda, Democrats can appeal to the strong voter sentiment that criminal justice reform is an important issue. 81% of voters support criminal justice reform, with one-third “strongly” in favor. By a margin of five to one, supporting criminal justice reform makes voters more likely to vote for a candidate. With enough investment, genuine change to the way the judicial and carceral system treats inmates can be accomplished, and Marcellus Williams’ story will be the marker of a bygone era in American history.
Camilo Choi (CC ‘28) is a staff writer at CPR majoring in sociology. Originally from Los Angeles, he has a passion for teaching and can be reached at cc5239@columbia.edu.