Not to put too fine a point on it, but Mike Parson, the governor of the benighted state of Missouri, committed a murder on Tuesday. He allowed to state to kill a 55-year old man named Marcellus Williams in retribution for a murder that Williams almost surely did not commit. Parsons did so with the support of the carefully manufactured conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court, and against the opposition of, among other people, the local prosecutor, and the family of the victim. From Parson’s chair, it was an altogether imperfect crime.

On August 11, 1998, a former St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter named Felicia Gayle was brutally stabbed to death in her home. It was a terrible, messy crime scene thick with biological evidence. DNA abounded. There were bloody footprints all over the kitchen floor and bloody fingerprints everywhere else. The knife was still in the victim’s neck.

Williams, a career criminal who already was serving a long prison term for a robbery, was fingered for the crime by a jailhouse informant and a former girlfriend. The jury took less than an hour to convict Williams of the murder.

But…DNA. Years after the conviction, a test of DNA found on the murder weapon revealed that the prosecutors’ team had mishandled the knife. The only evidence on it was from their team. Seven years ago, then-Governor Eric Greitens, whom nobody ever confused with Clarence Darrow, was so shaken by this that he triggered an obscure Missouri statute and created a board of inquiry to study the evidence from the trial. But Greitens lost his gig due to a baroque welter of personal scandals. Upon ascending to the governorship, Parson simply dissolved the panel that Greitens had created and re-scheduled Williams’ execution, which took place this week.

When he dissolved the board of inquiry, Parson explained that the search for truth in the case of Marcellus Williams had gone on long enough to suit him. From the Washington Post:

“We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim’s family in limbo, and solving nothing,” Parson said in a press release last year. “This administration won’t do that.”

Thus do we have yet another example that the death penalty is inconsistent with all the constitutional guarantees that exist in our criminal law, that it is a surrender to passion, and not to reason, that it is entirely an act of vengeance, not justice, and therefore, it is in every way anti-American. As Albert Camus wrote in 1957:

Whoever has done me harm must suffer harm; whoever has put out my eye must lose an eye; and whoever has killed must die. This is an emotion, and a particularly violent one, not a principle. Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature. If murder is in the nature of man, the law is not intended to imitate or reproduce that nature. It is intended to correct it.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Authorities are strongly urging drivers to use more caution after the death of a MoDOT worker who was hit by a semi-truck near Sedalia this week.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol and construction workers want drivers to pay attention and give them space to work.

”Don’t just look at the signs and see that there are signs. They’re there to keep the construction worker safe,” said Jeremy Willcock with Hartman and Company Construction.

Willcock didn’t start working in the industry yesterday. He’s been on the job for years. So, he knows the dangers that come with the work.

“If you don’t know what it’s like, walk up next to a highway at some point, and you can actually feel the vibration from the vehicles, especially the 18 wheelers,” he says.

The new plea for caution comes after the recent death of 60-year-old Jay Bone. The MoDOT worker hit and killed. The driver, however, is just 18 years old.

“It’s concerning to us that we talk about this every year. We offer training, but we do not see the trends moving in the right direction, in a safer direction,” said Willcock.

Missouri’s Move Over Law requires drivers to change lanes when approaching any emergency vehicles or MoDOT vehicles when it’s safe.

”Its intent is to provide, you know, safety and security,” said Sgt. Mike McClure with Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Troop D.

State troopers say whether you see workers on site or not, reduced speed limits are still in effect.

“Speed Limit through that zone is active, 24/7. But it becomes crucial when we have those construction workers present on site, then the fines go up if you are in violation of particularly the speed limit,” said Sgt. McClure.

The construction worker says the solution isn’t as simple as wearing high-visibility gear. Willcock says the solution is for drivers to pay attention while out on the road.

“There are a lot of signs out there through work zones, and a lot of them are repetitive, but they’re there and repetitive for a reason.”

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Copyright 2024 KY3. All rights reserved.

JASPER COUNTY, Mo. (KCTV) – An Olathe man was seriously injured in an early Friday morning crash in Jasper County, Missouri.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said 24-year-old Jake Monaco was the driver of a 2009 Infiniti G37 that went off the left side of Interstate 44 and hit an embankment just after midnight Friday morning.

MSHP said Monaco’s vehicle overturned, ejecting him from the vehicle. He was not wearing a seatbelt according to the crash report.

The 24-year-old from Olathe crashed 6.5 miles west of Sarcoxie, Missouri. He was taken by emergency medical staff to a hospital.

The crash happened at 12:15 a.m. Friday, MSHP said.

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.