How Marcellus Khaliifah Williams’s Story Shines Light on the Injustices within the Legal System

UPDATE: Thursday, August 22 at 12:47 p.m.

St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Hilton has blocked the Alford Plea deal that would have spared Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams his life. Instead, an evidentiary hearing is scheduled for August 28.

From the roots of language and the heart of humanity, the word “Justice” blossoms, entwined with the essence of equity and equality. In its truest form, justice is the sacred act of restoring balance to the scales of life, tipping gently towards fairness where there is imbalance.

As an abolitionist, I envision a world where justice is not a weapon of punishment, but a tender hand that nurtures and heals our communities. When a pauper steals a loaf of bread, true justice does not confine him to a cell but sows the seeds of plenty so that hunger is but a distant memory. 

In our misguided pursuit of retribution, we imprison the brightest lights of our generation.

These souls, forged into flints by the weight of oppression, hold the potential to ignite transformation. Yet, what does it say of our society when gentle genius and profound insight are shackled, hidden from the world behind bars? 

Take, for example, Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. Having spent the past 24 years of his life on death row for a crime that bears no evidence of connection to him, Khaliifah faces an execution date set for September 24th.

Khaliifah is a father, prolific poet, devout muslim and serves as Imam at the Potosi Correctional Center. Over the past 24 years Khaliifah has served an immaculate sentence free from incident. During this time, Khaliifah has developed a practice of writing poetry that speaks deep into the human experience.

His poems are stark perspectives on his life, his relationships, and the world at large. Through his words, Khaliifah reminds us of the ways that incarceration can rob the world of genius and beauty.

When I was an educator, my children with the most disruptive behaviors, were children for whom the classroom model did not work. Each of them held a brilliant fire not often stoked or valued by the education system. What was seen as disruptive behavior was simply a child attempting to meet their own needs within a system that neglected them. The cost of trying to fend for themselves was often detention, displacement from the classroom and other punitive measures.

These responses taught our kids (because they’re really ours) that society was going to reject them for being themselves, that they were wrong for not fitting in and doing so loudly, and that they could not trust these institutions to hold them with the respect, attention, and tenderness that they deserved. 

Those kids become adults who are continually making decisions for their survival in a world that does not value, honor, or believe in them. Some of them become artists, some of them don’t make it to the age of 30, and some of them move from confinement (detention) to confinement (prison). 

And still, there are other adults who get caught up in the racial profiling of an institution that disproportionately criminalizes and penalizes Black men. In Khaliifah’s case, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney reviewed the DNA results and filed a motion to vacate Williams’s conviction, asserting the DNA evidence clearly exonerates him. Despite this, Attorney General Andrew Bailey has remained unflinching in his judgment that the state should move forward with the execution.

The circuit court set a hearing for the morning of August 21 to examine this exculpatory evidence and address the motion. The evidentiary hearing was dismissed in lieu of a consent judgment. The judgment resulted in a nullification of the execution in exchange for an Alford plea in which Williams agreed to life without parole. It must be stated that this is not an admission of guilt.

To date, no evidence has been found that links Williams to the murder of Felicia Gayle in 1998 and Khaliifah maintains his innocence.

If anything Khaliifah’s story shows us that at its core, this system cannot provide true justice.

In a world that is quick to dehumanize the voices and perspectives of “undesirables,” organizations like MADP (Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty), Decarcerate KC and A Nation In Exile are fighting to uplift the voices, stories, and perspectives of those who have been banished into the shadows. These three organizations have gathered together local performance poets in our KC community to give a public reading of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams’ work.

If you would like to hear more about his story, how you can get involved, or about these organizations and the work they are doing in our community, you can attend the public reading at Turnsol Books, August 29th. The doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 8pm. This reading will be the closing night of an exhibit called CTRL + Burn, highlighting work from currently and formerly incarcerated artists.

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