In Florida, a jury recommended a life without parole sentence for Corey Binderim for the murder of 65-year-old Susan Mauldin in a 7-5 vote, one vote less than needed for a death sentence, First Coast News reported. Mauldin had hired Binderman, a contractor, to remodel a bathroom, in October 2019. Mauldin had complained about Binderim’s work on the bathroom, reportedly threatening to sue him. She was reported missing, and after a 10-day search, her body was found in a landfill. The state attorney had sought the death penalty for Binderim but told reporters she accepted that he will spend his life in prison.
In South Carolina, Richard Moore is scheduled to be killed tomorrow, WIS 10 reports . If it proceeds, it will be the second execution for the state this year. Moore was sentenced to death for the killing of store clerk James Mahoney in 1999. Moore, who is Black, was found guilty by an all-white jury. His lawyer, Lindsey Vann, maintains Moore’s conviction and death sentence were politically and racially motivated, and South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Executive Director Hillary Taylor told WIS 10 that prosecutor Holman Gossett “had almost exclusively tried Black defendants with white victims for the death penalty. All but one of 16 cases out of Spartanburg County in the modern death penalty era have been Black defendants with white victims.”
In Missouri, Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams was killed by the state on September 24, despite his profoundly flawed conviction. Williams was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle in August 1998. According to the Innocence Project, “the perpetrator left behind considerable forensic evidence, including fingerprints, footprints, hair, and trace DNA on the murder weapon, a knife from Ms. Gayle’s kitchen.” However, none of this evidence matched Williams. Instead, the prosecution relied on the testimony of two incentivized witnesses, who, in exchange for their testimony, were promised “leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money,” IP maintained. So many government officials are responsible for Williams’ execution, from Gov. Mike Parson to state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, to the state Supreme Court. Gayle’s family members didn’t want him executed, and the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney requested a hearing to challenge Williams’ conviction based on the lack of DNA linking him to the murder. But they were ignored. To read about his case is to read a case study of everything that is wrong with the death penalty in the US. It was simply a travesty.