Urgent
While writing this post, I learned that Marcellus Williams is scheduled to be executed on September 24, 2024. His case is highly unusual because even the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County, Wesley Bell, has been filing appeals to vacate Williams’ conviction and subsequent death sentence. Last week, Judge Bruce Hilton denied Bell’s first motion to vacate, which is based on DNA evidence that excludes Williams from having handled the murder weapon. Early this week, Bell filed a second appeal with the Missouri Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, attorneys for Williams have submitted a clemency petition to Governor Mike Parson that would spare Williams’ life, emphasizing that even relatives of the murder victim oppose the execution.
Convicted in 2001, Williams has spent nearly 24 years on death row. From the start, the case against him has been tainted with a variety of dubious circumstances, including lack of physical evidence, unreliable witnesses, racial discrimination during jury selection, failure to investigate alternate suspects, lack of motive, and prosecutorial misconduct. If like me, you think there’s enough wrong with this case to overturn Williams’ capital conviction, consider signing this petition to stop the execution of Marcellus Williams.
As I’ve written before, the renowned author Victor Hugo often mingled political passions with his art. One of his earliest causes involved saving the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris. An even tougher battle, however, and one he fought throughout his life, was putting an end to capital punishment. Hugo believed in the inviolability of human life and that society had no right to inflict the death penalty as a form of punishment. He was a prominent social influencer of the 19th century, yet many of his eloquently-worded arguments ring true to this day.
The Making of an Activist
The question of guilt or innocence was only one of the considerations behind Victor Hugo’s life-long opposition to the death penalty. He felt the practice was barbarous, often administered inconsistently, ineffective as a deterrent, irreversible, and unpardonable in the eventuality that an innocent man would be put to death. As a young man, Hugo attended two public executions that deeply affected him and set him on his unremitting crusade to abolish capital punishment.
One of these executions took place in 1820 when Hugo was 18. Louis Pierre Louvel was a Napoleon loyalist and saddlemaker who (after the fall of Napoleon and the re-establishment of the monarchy) worked in the royal stables looking for an opportunity to assassinate members of the royal family. After six years of laying low, Louvel seized upon a trip to the opera to plunge a knife into the Duke of Berry’s chest as he was leaving the theater. Louvel had identified Berry as the only living Bourbon who could potentially sire an heir to the throne.
Hugo purportedly saw Louvel being led to the scaffold. However, he’d long been aware of the fact that sometimes men are put to death. At the age of 5, on a family trip to Italy, Hugo saw the remains of hanged convicts. Public executions were relatively common throughout the 19th century and even the sight of an executioner preparing an elevated platform to host a guillotining aroused visions of horror in Hugo’s imagination. He was haunted by what he termed meutre judiciaire, and tried repeatedly to alter the public’s support of a practice he deemed inhumane and unjust.
The Last Day of a Condemned Man
As a popular author, activist, and politician, Hugo used his notoriety and eloquence to champion his cause. Hugo’s novels, poetry, testimonials, speeches in front of the National Assembly and Senate, as well as articles in the press, frequently addressed the issue head-on, condemning what he saw as cruelty and injustice inflicted by an ignorant and immoral state.
At age 27, Hugo wrote Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné. The novel, written in the first person, constitutes the diary of a convict who records his mental anguish and search for solace during the final 24 hours leading up to his execution. The man’s name and the reason he is being put to death are never revealed.
Ce bon géôlier, avec son sourire bénin, ses paroles caressantes, son oeil qui flatte et qui espionne, ses grosses et larges mains, c’est la prison incarnée, c’est Bicêtre qui s’est fait homme. Tout est prison autour de moi ; je retrouve la prison sous toutes les formes, sous la forme humaine comme sous la forme de grille ou de verrou. Ce mur, c’est de la prison en pierre ; cette porte, c’est de la prison en bois ; ces guichetiers, c’est de la prison en chair et en os. La prison est une espèce d’être horrible complet, indivisible, moitié maison, moitié homme. Je suis sa proie ; elle me couve, elle m’enlace de tous ses replis.
— Extrait de Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné, par Victor Hugo
This good jailer, with his benign smile, his tender words, his watchful eye that flatters and spies, his large and heavy hands, this is the incarnation of prison, this is [a notorious mental institution in Paris where patients were shackled] in the form of a human being. Everything around me represents prison; I find prison in all its forms, in human form as much as in the form of iron bars or locks. This wall is a prison of stone; this door is a prison of wood, these jailers are prisons of flesh and bone. Prison is a species of being, complete, indivisible, half enterprise, half man. I am its victim; it holds me in its clutch, wraps me in its folds.
— Excerpt from The Last Day of a Condemned Man, by Victor Hugo
In the preface to a re-edition in 1832, Hugo confessed that writing the novel had freed him from the guilt he’d suffered after standing among eager onlookers in La Place de Grève where Paris held its executions. For centuries, this infamous square was the scene of gruesome acts of corporal and capital punishment. If you’ve ever visited L’Hôtel de Ville de Paris, perhaps to attend one of the regular lively events in the plaza that fronts the building, you’ve walked over ground where body parts were once severed while crowds cheered.
Dedicating a novel to the subject of capital punishment might have relieved Hugo’s feelings of guilt but did little to end Hugo’s fight. Hugo also noted:
…se laver les mains est bien, empêcher le sang de couler serait mieux.
— Victor Hugo
…washing one’s hands is fine, preventing bloodshed would be better.
— Victor Hugo
Citizen Victor Hugo
The summer of 1848 was a tumultuous period in French history. A series of violent protests earlier in the year had led to the creation of France’s Second Republic. The political upheaval provoked extensive debates and speeches as legislators battled to influence the country’s newest constitution. Economic issues and social tensions provided the backdrop for a heated power struggle that ended with conservative factions gaining control of the National Assembly.
In June, new riots broke out. Participants were arrested and at issue was the question of how they should be punished. Throughout the month of July, Hugo, a newly elected representative to the National Assembly, intervened on behalf of several of these political prisoners who were being threatened with execution or deportation. Hugo argued that many of those put to death, only a half-century earlier, during the French Revolution and subsequent Reign of Terror, would now (fifty years hence) be embraced as important leaders. The opening to one of Hugo’s addresses that summer follows:
Messieurs, comme l’honorable rapporteur de votre commission, je ne m’attendais pas à parler sur cette grave et importante matière. Je regrette que cette question, la première de toutes peut-être, arrive au milieu de vos délibérations presque à l’improviste, et surprenne les orateurs non préparés. Quant à moi, je dirai peu de mots, mais, ils partiront du sentiment d’une conviction profonde et ancienne.
Sirs, as your honorable government commissioner, I wasn’t expecting to speak on this grave and important matter. I regret that this question, the first and foremost perhaps, arrives practically unannounced in the midst of your deliberations, taking unprepared orators by surprise. As for me, I will offer few words, but, they will come from a deeply held and ancient conviction.
Vous venez de consacrer l’inviolabilité du domicile ; nous vous demandons de consacrer une inviolabilité plus haute et plus sainte encore ; l’inviolabilité de la vie humaine.
Messieurs, une constitution, et surtout une constitution faite par et pour la France, est nécessairement un pas dans la civilisation ; si elle n’est point un pas dans la civilisation, elle n’est rien.
You have just consecrated the inviolability of the home; we are asking you to consecrate an even higher and saintlier inviolability; the inviolabilty of human life.
Sirs, a constitution, and above all a constitution made by and for France, is inevitably a step forward in civilization; if it is not a step forward in civilization, it is nothing.
Qu’est-ce que la peine de mort ? La peine de mort est le signe spécial et éternel de la barbarie. (Mouvement.) Partout où la peine de mort est prodiguée, la barbarie domine ; partout où la peine de mort est rare, la civilisation règne. Ce sont là des faits incontestables.
L’adoucissement de la pénalité est un grand et sérieux progrès. Le 18° siècle, c’est là une partie de sa gloire, a aboli la torture ; le 19° abolira certainement la peine de mort.
— Victor Hugo
What is the death penalty? The death penalty is the special and eternal sign of barbarism. Wherever the death penalty is imposed, barbarism dominates; wherever the death penalty is rare, civilization reigns. These are the incontestable facts. The easing of the death penalty represents important and serious progress. A great part of the glory of the 18th century is its abolition of torture; the 19th century will certainly abolish the death penalty.
— Victor Hugo
A Gruesome Undertaking
Between 1851 and 1870, Victor Hugo lived in exile. Much of that time was spent on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, off the coast of Normandy. In 1853, an Englishman named John Charles Tapner was arrested for bludgeoning his mistress’s landlady into oblivion, then burning her house down. Tapner was tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to a public hanging.
Upon learning of the ruling, Hugo wrote an open letter to the residents of Guernsey, compelling them to petition the judge for mercy. Despite the participation of over 600 Guernseymen, the execution went forward on February 10, 1854. If the 200 ticketholders gathered for the event were hoping for a horror-filled punch to the gut, they got their money’s worth.
Due to a shortened rope, Tapner’s hooded body did not fall fast enough when it dropped through the trapdoor of the execution platform. As he swung, strangling, Tapner managed to free his bound hands, grab onto the trap door, and pull himself up. The executioner then pried Tapner’s hands free, once again dropping him through the hole and once again failing to snap the prisoner’s neck.
Looking down through that window to hell, the executioner must have decided that Tapner’s death would not come quickly unless drastic measures were taken. He climbed through the trapdoor and clung to Tapner’s legs, adding his weight to the inadequate poundage for severing spinal columns. It took another 12 minutes for Tapner to die but his body was left hanging for an additional hour just be sure.
Hugo was not present but received details of the event from those who were. On February 11, he sent a burning letter to the British Home Secretary, Lord Palmerston (who later served as Prime Minister). The exercise became part of a larger campaign to end capital punishment in which Hugo regularly confronted people in power.
An International Call for Clemency
Hugo’s calls for lighter sentencing extended all the way to America. In 1859, Hugo wrote an open letter to the London News imploring the United States to spare the life of John Brown, an anti-slavery activist. Brown had been shot and captured while raiding the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He’d planned to seize weapons to equip a slave revolt. Below are excerpts from Hugo’s public appeal.
Quand on pense aux États-Unis d’Amérique, une figure majestueuse se lève dans l’esprit, Washington. Or, dans ce pays de Washington, voici ce qui a lieu en ce moment : Il y a des esclaves dans les états du sud, ce qui indigne, comme le plus monstrueux des contre-sens, la conscience logique et pure des états du Nord.
Un homme blanc, un homme libre, John Brown, a voulu délivrer ces esclaves de leur servitude. Certes, si l’insurrection est un devoir sacré, c’est contre l’esclavage. John Brown a voulu commencer l’œuvre de salut par la délivrance des esclaves de la Virginie. Puritain, religieux, austère, plein de l’évangile, Christus nos liberavit, il a jeté à ces hommes, à ces frères, le cri d’affranchissement. Les esclaves, énervés par la servitude, n’ont pas répondu à l’appel. L’esclavage produit la surdité de l’âme. John Brown, abandonné, a combattu ; avec une poignée d’hommes héroïques, il a lutté ; il a été criblé de balles ; ses deux jeunes fils, saints martyrs, sont tombés morts à ses côtés ; il a été pris. C’est ce qu’on nomme l’affaire de Harper’s Ferry.
When our thoughts dwell upon the United States of America, a majestic form rises in the spirit of George Washington! Yet, in this country of Washington’s, look at what is currently taking place: There are slaves in the southern states, a condition which outrages, like the most monstrous of errors, the pure and logical conscience of the northern states.
A white man, a free man, John Brown, wanted to deliver these slaves from their servitude. If rebellion is ever a sacred duty, certainly so it must be when directed against slavery. John Brown wanted to begin the work of salvation by freeing the slaves of Virginia. Puritanical, religious, austere, filled with the gospel, Chrisus nos liberavit, he hurled at these men, at these brothers, the cry of emancipation. The slaves, unnerved by servitude, failed to respond to Brown’s appeal. Slavery produces deafness of the soul. John Brown, abandonned, continued to fight; with a handful of heroic men, he struggled on; he was riddled with balls, his two young sons, sacred martyrs, fell dead at his side; and he was captured. This is what they call the Affair at Harper’s Ferry.
John Brown, sur un lit de sangle, avec six blessures mal fermées, un coup de feu au bras, un aux reins, deux à la poitrine, deux à la tête, entendant à peine, saignant à travers son matelas, les ombres de ses deux fils morts près de lui ; ses quatre coaccusés, blessés, se traînant à ses côtés, Stephens avec quatre coups de sabre ; la « justice » pressée et passant outre ; un attorney Hunter qui veut aller vite, un juge Parker qui y consent, les débats tronqués, presque tous délais refusés, production de pièces fausses ou mutilées, les témoins à décharge écartés, la défense entravée, deux canons chargés à mitraille dans la cour du tribunal, ordre aux geôliers de fusiller les accusés si l’on tente de les enlever, quarante minutes de délibération, trois condamnations à mort. J’affirme sur l’honneur que cela ne s’est point passé en Turquie, mais en Amérique.
John Brown, lying upon a bed of rope, with six half-open wounds: a gun-shot wound in his arm, another in his loins, two in his chest, two on his head, barely able to hear, bathing his mattress in blood, the shadows of his two dead sons beside him; his four wounded co-defendants, dragging by his side, Stephens with four saber wounds; the justice system in a hurry bypassing normal procedure; an attorney, Hunter, who wishes to proceed hastily, a judge, Parker, who consents to Hunter’s demands, arguments cut short, practically all delays denied, production of forged or mutilated documents, dissenting witnesses dismissed, the defense hampered, two loaded machine guns stationed in the courtyard, jailers ordered to fire on the accused if someone tries to liberate them, forty minutes to deliberate, three men sentenced to death. I declare upon my honor that this did not take place in Turkey, but in America.
Au point de vue politique, le meurtre de Brown serait une faute irréparable. Il ferait à l’Union une fissure latente qui commencerait à s’élargir avec la rancune du Sud, et qui finirait par disloquer la république. Au point de vue moral, il semble qu’une partie de la lumière de l’humanité s’éclipserait, que la notion même du juste et de l’injuste s’obscurcirait, le jour où l’on verrait se consommer l’assassinat de la Délivrance par la Liberté.
Politically speaking, Brown’s murder would be an irreparable mistake. It would create a gaping crack that would further increase the rancor between North and South, and would finish by dismantling the republic. Morally speaking, it seems to me that part of humanity’s enlightenment would be eclipsed, that the very notion of what is just and unjust would be obscured, the day where we would see the assassination of Deliverance through Freedom.
Quant à moi, qui ne suis qu’un atome, mais qui, comme tous les hommes, ai en moi toute la conscience humaine, je m’agenouille avec larmes devant le grand drapeau étoilé du nouveau monde, et je supplie à mains jointes, avec un respect profond et filial, cette illustre république américaine, sœur de la république française, d’aviser au salut de la loi morale universelle, de sauver John Brown…
Oui, que l’Amérique le sache et y songe, il y a quelque chose de plus effrayant que Caïn tuant Abel, c’est Washington tuant Spartacus.
— Victor Hugo
As for me, I am but an atom, but one who, like all men, hold within me all of human conscience, I kneel weeping before the great starred flag of the new world, and I beg with joined hands, with deep and filial respect, this illustrious American Republic, sister of the French Republic, I beg you to be guided by the salvation of universal moral law, to save John Brown…
Yes, let America know and long ponder that there is something more frightening that Cain slaying Abel, it is Washinton killing Spartacus.
— Victor Hugo
Unbeknownst to Hugo, Brown’s execution date was move up and he was probably already dead by the time news of the letter reached the United States. As predicted by Hugo, Brown’s actions and his subsequent hanging heightened tensions between North and South and the country soon fell into civil war.
History’s Lessons
In Hugo’s day, executions were well-attended public spectacles. Experts believed that the guillotine was the most humane method of ending someone’s life, but I’d argue that it’s also one of the most gruesome. Yet, crowds gathered to see the condemned paraded through the streets and marched to the top of the execution platform. The horrifying act completed, it was common practice for the executioner to hold up the severed head for all to see.
Of course attendees accounted for a small fraction of the overall population, but everyone knew what went on whether they lived in a neighborhood downwind of the rotting blood that accumulated over time or simply learned about the latest beheading or neck snapping from the newspaper. Hugo refused to join the throng of ignorance and complicity. His combat was fueled by his optimism and certainty that capital punishemnt would be abolished during his lifetime.
You may be surprised to learn that the last person that France put to death by guillotine was executed in 1977. “Those barbaric French people!” one might exclaim. Yet, France outlawed capital punishment completely in 1981, while many states in the U. S. continue to execute criminals, even in the face of a dubious conviction.
In recent days I’ve repeatedly checked the news for updates on the scheduled execution of Marcellus Williams. I’ve seen nothing on TV about his case, and nothing in the headlines of major media outlets. Of critical importance, however, seem to be comments that a gubernatorial candidate once typed on a porn site’s message board. So goes mankind’s enlightenment.
Good for you! I signed. I hope he will be freed.
Thanks Sarah.
Cheers to Victor Hugo’s sense of fairness and justice for his fellow human beings.
I included a couple of links about the Marcellus Williams case in one of my link round-ups in August. I hope the execution is stopped — this sounds like a clear-cut miscarriage of justice.
That being said, I don’t agree with the abolitionist position here. There are cases of persons who are unambiguously guilty of crimes which are unambiguously deserving of death. It is possible to achieve justice in such cases while refusing to impose the death penalty in cases where there is any doubt of guilt — in fact, the system is supposed to refuse to convict in all cases where there is reasonable doubt, regardless of the potential penalty, and the fact that this sometimes doesn’t happen is an indictment of the justice system, not of the death penalty specifically.
I cannot help think that Hugo’s novel, in refusing to state the reason for his condemned protagonist being sentenced to death, committed a kind of intellectual dishonesty. The nature of the crime and its effect on the victim, after all, are the entire point.
Ted Bundy deserved the death penalty. Charles Manson deserved the death penalty (though he did not receive it). Justice for their victims could not be achieved by anything less. A year ago a man whose name I forget was arrested in New Jersey, who had been regularly raping his own seven-year-old daughter and video-recording these acts for sale as pornography to the kind of people who enjoy watching such things. Nothing will ever convince me that man does not deserve death.
The claim that execution is “judicial murder” depends on the position that a penalty imposed by a court with all the safeguards and legal constraints of a civilized state is no different than the arbitrary act of an individual. By that argument, a prison sentence is no different than kidnapping, imposing a fine is no different than common theft, etc.
Experts believed that the guillotine was the most humane method of ending someone’s life, but I’d argue that it’s also one of the most gruesome
I would argue that it’s both. It brings death faster than almost any other method, and even if death is not quite instantaneous, in the vast majority of cases the hydraulic shock of the blade impact is transmitted through the cerebrospinal fluid instantly to the brain and knocks it unconscious. This is far more humane than, say, electrocution or lethal injection (which is reported to be both slow and painful in practice in many cases), or than hanging, which is easily bungled, as the Tapner case illustrates. And, yes, it is gruesome for onlookers, but that can be considered a positive thing. Part of the value of the death penalty is to deter others who might be contemplating heinous crimes. Unlike some, I’m not squeamish about facing the implications of what I believe on this issue.
Sadly, all appeals failed and Williams was executed yesterday.
In Hugo’s day, criminals were executed for crimes ranging from armed robbery, to arson, to espionage, to murder. I haven’t read The Last Day of a Condemned Man but Hugo might have addressed problems like dubious eyewitnesses, lack of hard evidence, political bias, or other factors that taint one’s certainty of guilt or innocence. The point being that there is not a perfect process that guarantees accuracy of the verdict. Perhaps Hugo felt that the case against Capital Punishment would be overly simplified by providing a single anecdote. In the real world, Hugo loudly condemned the execution of many actual convicts.
In the cases that you present, I agree that the death penalty seems warranted and yes, the problem lies with a flawed judicial system. Juries have biases and make mistakes. OJ was acquitted. The Central Park 5 were wrongly convicted. Maybe someday we’ll no longer have citizens ready to believe that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s cats. But as things stand, I’m willing to support a ruthless sociopath for the rest of his days if it means that innocent people will never be put to death.
I don’t think there’s much evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. Most criminals don’t expect to be caught. I guess in societies where thieves have their hands cut off, adulterers are buried up to their neck, and heads are publicly severed with a razor-sharp sword, such punishments have a deterring effect. Yet, at that point, the population is living under a reign of terror and thievery, adultery, and murder still take place.
Victor Hugo was a living monument. An exceptional human being. An artist, a writer, a political figure. An “intellectuel” as one would say today. I din’t know he’d stood against the death penalty. Another bright side to the man… (Why do I feel we don’t have the equivalent today?)
Yes, Hugo was exceptionally gifted. I guess it would be hard to have a single person today who could make the same kind of impact. For one thing, there are far more people in the world and far more societal influencers (some even non-living) filling the airwaves with ideas ranging from brilliant to wacko. 🙂
The age is of more specialisation I guess. Personally I prefer a “dilettante” approach. Not Hugo was one, he was very good at whatever he touched…
Influencers? Ten years ago I was measuring, for my clients, the impact and usefulness of “social networks.” Days of the first “community managers”. You’re only too kind in your assessment of “brilliant to…”. I suspect there are more wackos, but then I’m French, always pessimistic. LOL.
All well with you?
All well here. I think there are still many intensely gifted creatives and innovators in the world, probably in the same percentages as in days of old. Now, however, everyone has a megaphone. So, it’s much harder to recognize the geniuses in the same way that Hugo was recognized. Conclusion? I feel like modern day has wacko parity with the past.
You are most probably right. Also about the megaphone… (A little restraint would be welcome. LOL.) (I know I’m getting old…)
“Wacko parity with the past”? I know ‘wacko’ but I’m not sure I understand the sentence.
Just meant that the percentage of wackos today might well be equivalent to the percentage of wackos 150 years ago. Difficile à dire. 🙂
Got it. Absolutely. I think the incidence is about the same. Today’s whackos only have more media at their disposal. (Which often saddens me, since humanity has never been so educated. Looks like education has failed to eliminate human stupidity… Tsss.
Well, we’ll just have to make do shan’t we?
I found the governor on Twitter, where he was urging us to honor the missing POWs. It seemed reasonable to tell him I agreed we should remember the POWs, but surely he can see it’s also important to prevent an innocent man from being executed. (He hasn’t responded…)
I didn’t know about Hugo’s passionate opposition to the death penalty, and I found his attempts to save John Brown fascinating.
I share Hugo’s position, and I hope some day we as a society will move past this state-enacted barbarity. We can protect people from the worst criminals without resorting to premeditated murder.
Good idea tracking Governor Parson’s twitter feed. I sent him an email but sadly, the efforts of of hundreds of thousands of people have fallen on deaf ears.
Thanks for reading, hope you come back.