Marcellus Williams was sentenced to death row and died by lethal injection Tuesday evening, September 24, in Missouri state prison after the Supreme Court refused to grant a temporary halt or postponement of Marcellus Williams' execution.
55-year-old Williams’ attorneys had filed numerous appeals based on newly found evidence- including supposedly biased jury selection and contamination of the murder weapon before the day of trial. The defendant’s family and defense team had asked him to be spared execution.
The Supreme Court’s decision arrived a day after Missouri’s Supreme Court and governor refused the family’s appeals.
The Supreme Court didn’t explain its decision, which is common in cases on its emergency docket. Although there weren’t any noted dissents in two of Williams’ appeals to spare the inmate from death, the third one revealed that Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have granted the request to pause the execution.
Williams’ Disputed Conviction
In 2001, Williams was convicted of the murder of 42-year-old reporter Felicia Gayle, who was found stabbed to death 43 times with a butcher’s knife in her home after a burglary in 1998.
Gov. Mike Parson stated in a speech read by Trevor Foley, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, “We hope this gives finality to a case that’s languished for decades, re-victimizing Ms. Gayle’s family for decades.” He added, “No juror, no judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible. Two decades of judicial proceedings and more than 15 judicial hearings upheld his guilty conviction. Thus, the order of execution has been carried out.”
Larry Komp, one of Williams’ attorneys, said his client maintained his innocence to the end during a statement after Williams’ execution.
“While he would readily admit to the wrongs he had done throughout his life, he never wavered in asserting his innocence of the crime for which he was put to death tonight,” Komp stated. “Although we are devastated and in disbelief over what the State has done to an innocent man, we are comforted that he left this world in peace.”
Soon after the Supreme Court’s decision, another one of Williams’ attorneys, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, told reporters that the state was preparing to kill an innocent man.
“They will do it even though the prosecutor doesn’t want him to be executed, the jurors who sentenced him to death don’t want him executed, and the victims themselves don’t want him to be executed. We have a system that values finality over fairness, which is the rest we will get from that.”
“It is news to all of us, and I think that it should be a shame to all of us that we have a system that will let a man be executed in spite of all of this, really is not a system of justice,” Rojo said.
In a statement posted on X, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s President Derrick Johnson said, “Missouri lynched another innocent Black man. Governor Parson had the responsibility to save this innocent life, and he didn’t … We will hold Governor Parson accountable. When DNA evidence proves innocence, capital punishment is not justice – it is murder.”
The top prosecutor in St. Louis County, Wesley Bell, joined Williams’ team of attorneys in asking for the capital punishment conviction to be overturned after the 2001 trial prosecutor’s new testimony and a recent DNA testing which showed evidence of contamination.
The case drew attention to the issue of potentially putting an innocent person to death – an always-present risk of capital punishment due to its nature. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later cleared from blame, including four in Missouri.
Williams’ Moments Before His Death
On the 21st of September, Williams’ last witnessed statement was, “All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!” Williams was a devoted Muslim and, according to his legal team, also an imam for the prisoners and a poet.
His last meal consisted of chicken wings and tater tots, recorded by Karen Pojmann, spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections. He also had a final visit with Imam Jalahii Kacem from around 11 am to 12:30 p.m.
And around 4:50 pm, the Department of Corrections received word that all objections had been denied by the Supreme Court, and about an hour later, Williams’ witnesses, which included his two sons and two of his attorneys, were moved into the viewing room of the prison, Pojmann noted at a news conference.
At 6 pm, Missouri state Attorney General Andrew Bailey notified the Department of Corrections that there were no legal setbacks to the execution. The lethal injection was given at 6:01 p.m., and Williams was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m., Pojmann stated.
Around a hundred protesters were present that day at the prison, protesting the potential misuse of capital punishment and Williams’ execution. It was reported that none of Gayle’s relatives were present.
Attorneys Attempted to Intervene
Williams’ legal team and the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a joint documentation brief on Saturday, asking the Missouri Supreme Court to send the case back to a lower court to get a more ‘comprehensive’ hearing on Bell’s January motion to annul Williams’ conviction and sentence.
The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office reasoned in the motion that the DNA testing of the weapon used in Gayle’s murder might possibly suggest that Williams was not the culprit.
But their effort proved to be fruitless after a circuit court sitting last month when a recent DNA testing unveiled that the murder weapon had been mishandled and contaminated before the 2001 trial, ruining the evidence that could possibly exonerate Williams and thus making his pursuit of proving his innocence even more difficult.
The state’s judicial branch stated that the attorneys “received a report indicating the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to an assistant prosecuting attorney and an investigator who had handled the murder weapon without gloves prior to trial.”
However, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office argued that the results from new DNA testing don’t necessarily exonerate Williams.
Missouri State Attorney General Andrew Bailey stated, “In this case, a new round of DNA testing proved the office was right all along; the knife in question has been handled by many actors, including law enforcement, since being found.” He then added, “In addition, one of the defense’s experts previously testified he could not rule out the possibility that Williams’s DNA was also on the knife. He could only testify to the fact that enough actors had handled the knife throughout the legal process that others’ DNA was present.”
The attorney general also commented that other evidence that supported Williams’ conviction “remained intact.”
He then elaborated, saying, “The victim’s personal items were found in Williams’s car after the murder. A witness testified that Williams had sold the victim’s laptop to him. Williams confessed to his girlfriend and an inmate in the St. Louis City Jail, and William’s girlfriend saw him dispose of the bloody clothes worn during the murder.”
The Trial Prosecutor’s Testimony
Williams’ defense team had asked the Supreme Court last month to temporarily suspend the execution, reasoning that newly discovered evidence from the trial prosecutor’s testimony” could prove the inmate’s innocence.
During a motion-to-vacate judgment on August 28, the prosecutor from the 2001 trial “admitted that he had struck (a potential juror from the jury pool) because, like Mr. Williams, (the potential juror) was Black,” wrote Williams’ legal team on an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to intervene with the conviction.
During a Missouri Supreme Court hearing last Monday, attorney Jonathan Potts said that there was a racial component to this decision.
However, the Missouri Attorney General’s office disagreed with this interpretation of the trial prosecutor’s testimony, Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane saying, “He said they look like brothers” during the hearing.
“What did he say when asked directly, ‘Did you strike someone … with part of the reason for striking someone because (you’re) Black?’ He said no, absolutely not,” Spillane said. “And he explained that that would be a violation.”
Spillane explained that when asked directly if he had struck someone with part of the reason for them being black, the prosecutor said, “No, absolutely not.” and then he described that that would be a violation.
Despite all the efforts, the Missouri Supreme Court decided without opposition not to stop the execution. The reason given in the court’s opinion is that Williams’ team had “failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams’ actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial.”
Republican Gov. Parson stated he would not intervene with Williams’ conviction, even though he had the power to halt the execution.
He stated after the Supreme Court’s decision that “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. Nothing from the real facts of this case has led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence, as such, Mr. Williams’ punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.”
The Gayle Family for Life In Prison
Last month, the St. Louis' Prosecuting Attorney’s Office reached an agreement with Williams. Under the consent order, which was approved by the court and Gayle’s family, Williams would enter an Alford plea (a plea of guilty containing a protestation of innocence) of guilty to first-degree murder and then be sentenced to life in prison once again. However, the State Attorney General’s Office opposed the deal and appealed to the state Supreme Court, which hindered the agreement.
Williams’ defense team filed a clemency petition to the Supreme Court, arguing that "Missouri’s previous governor had postponed Williams’ execution indefinitely amid questions about the integrity of Williams’ trial."
Former Governor Eric Greitens had postponed Williams’ execution and formed a board to investigate whether clemency should be granted. Williams’ legal team wrote, "The Board investigated Williams’ case for the next six years — until new Governor Michael Parson abruptly terminated the process."
After Parson was elected for office, he disestablished the board and revoked Williams’ stay of execution. "The Governor’s actions have violated Williams’ constitutional rights and created an exceptionally urgent need for the Court’s attention," Williams’ team of attorneys argued.
Parson defended his decision by saying, "This Board was established nearly six years ago, and it is time to move forward. We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim’s family in limbo, and solving nothing. This administration won’t do that."
Parson ultimately denied the request for clemency and ignored the wishes of Felicia Gayle’s husband, who has consistently made clear that he opposed the death penalty for Mr. Williams.
Thousands Protested the Death Penalty
The case drew activists’ attention all across the country. Protesters against the death penalty were present at the prison grounds on the 24th of September, condemning Williams’ execution.
Many known critics of the death penalty described the conviction as an “injustice,” drawing attention to the lack of solid evidence and the mishandling of the case by the state.
Democratic Party Member Missouri Representative and ‘Black Lives Matter’ activist Cori Anika Bush criticized the execution and called for the abolition of the death penalty. The chief prosecutor for St. Louis County, Wesley Bell, who has been trying to prove Williams’ innocence for a long time, also wrote on X, "Marcellus Williams should be alive today. If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option."
Non-profit organizations against death row like ‘The Innocence Project,’ which works to free the innocent and create an anti-racist, fair, and compassionate legal system, and the ‘Death Penalty Information Center,’ whose mission is to serve the media, policymakers, and the general public with data and analysis on issues concerning capital punishment and the people it affects, highlighted the increasing number of seemingly baseless death row convictions.
Williams’s execution also reaffirmed calls from progressives to abolish the death penalty, including from Representatives Ilhan Omar from Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York.
“The death penalty is flawed, racist, and unjust,” Omar summarised. “It has no place in America or anywhere else in the world. Abolish it.”
