MARCELLUS WILLIAMS
Charlie Kirk, a co-founder of Turning Point USA, a non-profit organization that promotes conservatism among high school and college students, recently debated a group of college students on whether abortion is murder.
Any legal dictionary will define murder as the unlawful and intentional act of causing death to a living being. Killing, on the other hand, can be legal or illegal depending on the circumstances, and it may or may not involve intent to cause death.
Kirk told the students that murder is the intentional taking of life that differs from killing, but he never clarified the distinction between killing and murder.
By failing to define killing, Kirk allowed the students to believe that it’s an unintentional act like manslaughter. Kirk cleverly eliminated the argument that an abortion can be defined as killing because the procedure is intentional.
Kirk wanted the students to believe that killing is unintentional while abortions are intentional, implying that terminating a fetus is murder. Kirk encouraged the students to come to the pro-life conclusion that abortion is murder, and if murder is always prohibited, abortion should always be outlawed, except in circumstances of rape, incest, or to preserve the mother’s life.
Kirk’s logic seems sound, but that doesn’t make it correct.
When Kirk defined murder, he simply took out the word “unlawful” and concentrated entirely on intent. If a procedure for terminating a fetus is legal, the result cannot be considered murder. Killing can be intentional and legal, depending on the circumstances. An intentional situation, such as an abortion, kills the fetus but does not constitute murder.
Kirk understands the law, but he is morally opposed to abortion. Kirk wants the practice outlawed. His only way around the law is to convince the public that abortions constitute murder and should be illegal.
Let’s go from abortion to capital punishment.
Activists that want the death penalty abolished have condemned Missouri for murdering Marcellus Williams. In 1998, a jury found Williams, a Black man, guilty of murdering a White woman, which led to his recent execution.
Mike Parson, Missouri’s governor, denied William’s last request for clemency. In 2017, the former governor gave Williams a stay of execution and appointed a panel of retired judges to determine if he was innocent. Parson dissolved the panel and proceeded with the execution because it had not reached a result in more than half a decade.
Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Williams, said, “Given everything we know about Marcellus Williams—including new revelations that the trial prosecutor removed at least one Black juror and opposition to this execution from the victim’s family and the sitting prosecuting attorney—the courts must step in to prevent this irreparable injustice.” Williams’ other counsel established that there was no DNA evidence linking him to the murder weapon.
In 1998, a crime scene investigator testified that the murderer was wearing gloves. The removal of a Black juror implies that the trial was unfair, which does not support innocence. Williams’ conviction was based on testimony from his girlfriend, who found the murder victim’s purse in Williams’ car, and the police found personal items belonging to the victim in the truck. An agreement was reached between Williams’ attorneys and the prosecutor’s office. Williams agreed to enter a new no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a life sentence without parole.
A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, although it is treated as such for sentence purposes.
It’s worth noting that the prosecutor has publicly said that he opposes capital punishment because it unfairly affects the poor and minorities. The victim’s family accepted the compromise because they did not want to relive the horrific event and wanted closure. In a statement, the victim’s family stated, “Whether the death penalty is justified in this case is up for debate. His guilt is not.”
According to Governor Parson, “Mr. Williams has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction. No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld.”
Guilt doesn’t matter to the activists, who believe that “state murder” is not justice.
An execution, however, results in the death of a person as punishment for a capital crime. By definition, it’s not murder. These activists are morally opposed to the death penalty, but they believe the only way they can abolish it is by convincing the public that capital punishment is murder.
Kirk and the anti-capital punishment activists are crusaders on separate missions, but how moral can their mission be if they must manipulate the concept of murder to achieve their objective?
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