EDITORIALS: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Voices Death Penalty Opposition Even in Murder of Fellow Journalist

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reit­er­at­ed its oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, even as Missouri pre­pares to exe­cute the man con­vict­ed of killing a for­mer Post-Dispatch reporter. Marcellus Williams is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on January 28 for the mur­der of Lisha Gayle (pic­tured), who left her job as a jour­nal­ist three years before she was killed. The paper not­ed Gayle’s like­ly oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty: ​“It would be sur­pris­ing, in light of her oth­er caus­es and pas­sions, if Lisha her­self was a death penal­ty sup­port­er.” It then cat­a­logued its own rea­sons for oppos­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ​“It is expen­sive — each case costs about $1 mil­lion more to pros­e­cute than a cap­i­tal case where the death penal­ty is not sought, accord­ing to one study. It serves no deter­rent pur­pose. It can’t help but be imposed arbi­trar­i­ly and capri­cious­ly. Occasionally inno­cent peo­ple are put to death. Occasionally, exe­cu­tions are botched and inmates suf­fer cru­el and unusual pain.”

(“Editorial: The death penal­ty debate comes close to home,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 19, 2015). See Editorials and Victims.