Double Standards in the Justice System

By: Deanna Hall, Staff Writer

On September 24, 2024, Marcellus Williams was executed by the state of Missouri using lethal injection. Williams was convicted in 2001 for the murder of a news reporter, Felicia Gayle, in 1998.¹ However, there were many who doubted his guilt, including prosecutors in St. Louis.² Williams was convicted despite there being little to no physical evidence connecting him to the crime.³ Even Gayle’s family fought for Marcellus to serve life without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty. ⁴

On the same day, in Los Angeles, California, Anna Sorokin (most notably known as Anna Delvey) was eliminated from Dancing with the Stars.⁵ Delvey participated in the show for two episodes while wearing an ankle monitor that was bedazzled to match her outfits. ⁶Delvey wears the ankle monitor as a condition of her house arrest following her arrest by ICE as she fights her deportation status for overstaying her visa. ⁷Delvey was released from prison in 2021 for her 2019 convictions of four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny, and one count of attempted grand larceny.⁸ Delvey conned the elite of New York City, banks, and hotels by claiming she was a German heiress and asking people to front money, claiming she had a rough time moving her assets from Europe to the United States, when she was actually born in Russia with no money to her name, according to NBC.⁹

The contrast between the treatment of Delvey and Williams is more than just the vast difference in their alleged crimes but is also a stark example of how the justice system treats people based on their social identity and background.

Williams, a Black man, was convicted because of witness statements from his then girlfriend, Laura Asaro, and his cellmate, Henry Cole, both of whom were pressured by the police and interested in the award money of $10,000.¹⁰ None of the physical evidence found at the scene was tied to Marcellus.¹¹ According to Balls and Strikes, “three experts who independently reviewed DNA test results of the knife used to kill Gayle concluded that Williams had not been the one who wielded it.”¹² Furthermore, the bloody shoe prints found in Gayle’s home weren’t Williams’s and neither were the fingerprints, nor the hair left behind tied to him.¹³

The legal system continuously failed Williams throughout his trial when he was assigned a jury of eleven White women and one Black man. Six of seven potential Black jurors were dismissed, one of which having been dismissed because he was a Black man, with a former prosecutor claiming that he removed the juror due to how close in appearance he was to Williams.¹⁴ Since his conviction in 2001, advocates had been fighting for Williams to not be executed citing the racial bias that happened at his trial and the lack of physical evidence tying him to the crime.¹⁵ However, attempts were unsuccessful when the United States Supreme Court denied a stay in execution.¹⁶

Delvey, a White woman, has faced relatively few challenges following her conviction.¹⁷ One condition allowed Delvey to travel anywhere within a 70-mile (112 kilometers) radius from her home base in the East Village of New York, and anywhere within the five boroughs of New York City, according to her spokesperson.¹⁸ Another condition was that Delvey was supposed to stay off of social media, but she has since been posting on Instagram and currently has 1 million followers.¹⁹

Her participation in Dancing with the Stars and showing off her ankle monitor like an accessory highlight the privilege she faces as a White woman in the justice system. Her conviction was not a life-or-death situation in the same way it was for Williams, or for many of the other people who have faced the death penalty from false convictions.²⁰ Black Americans make up only 13% of the US population, yet account for 40% of the prison population and nearly 60% of all DNA exonerations in the country.²¹ She was able to be perceived as a misguided young woman with the media reinforcing this image through opportunities such as her Dancing with the Stars appearance and a Netflix series based on her crimes, titled Inventing Anna.²² In a press release Delvey was deemed the “notorious ankle bracelet fashionista”, showing that they do not take her crimes seriously.²³ As evidenced by the outcomes of both cases, Williams experienced extremely distinct treatment compared to Delvey, calling attention to racial bias within the justice system.

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