A Missouri man convicted of homicide was executed Tuesday night after efforts by his attorneys as effectively the prosecutor’s workplace to halt it had been rejected by the governor and Supreme Court.
Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted and sentenced to demise for the 1998 homicide Felicia “Lisha” Gayle, a newspaper reporter discovered stabbed to demise in her residence within the St. Louis space. He maintained his innocence.
Williams was executed at a jail in Bonne Terre and pronounced useless at 6:10 p.m. native time (7:10 p.m. ET), the state Department of Corrections stated.
“Tonight, Missouri executed an harmless man,” The Innocence Project, which together with others tried to halt the execution, said in an announcement.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Tuesday denied a keep of execution. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, and the Missouri Supreme Court on Monday rejected requests to halt it.
Williams’ attorneys argued that his DNA was not on the homicide weapon and that his 2001 trial was unfair, saying a trial lawyer dismissed a juror primarily based on race and there was just one Black juror on the panel. Williams is Black.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell additionally sought to halt the execution, saying DNA specialists concluded Williams was excluded from DNA discovered on the homicide weapon via testing that was not accessible on the time of the trial.
Bell sought a time period of life in jail as an alternative, and Gayle’s household agreed to that. Bell stated Tuesday night time that Williams shouldn’t have been executed.
“If there’s even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the demise penalty ought to by no means be an choice,” Bell stated after Williams was executed. “This end result didn’t serve the pursuits of justice.”
Williams in a ultimate assertion wrote, “All Praise Be To Allah In Every Situation!!!” His final go to was with Imam Jalahii Kacem Tuesday morning, the Department of Corrections stated.
On Monday, a day earlier than Williams was executed by injection, his attorneys argued earlier than the Missouri Supreme Court that his execution must be halted as a result of the trial lawyer for the prosecution within the 2001 trial stated at a latest listening to that he struck a Black man from the jury due to his race and that the prosecution mishandled the homicide weapon.
“The prosecutor in Marcellus Williams’ case has admitted beneath oath that he struck a juror partially due to his race,” lawyer Jonathan Potts stated at Monday’s listening to.
Potts stated the trial prosecutor struck a Black man “partially as a result of he was a younger man with glasses” and appeared just like Williams.
“He admitted that there was truly a racial element right here, and that’s unconstitutional,” he stated.
The jury included one Black member.
Potts additionally argued that the trial prosecutor mishandled the homicide weapon in unhealthy religion when he held it with out gloves, contaminating the knife, which they are saying might have been used to show Williams was harmless.
Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane denied that the potential juror was struck as a result of he was Black, saying: “There’s no clearly convincing proof right here. There’s no proof in any respect.”
He additionally stated that primarily based on procedures on the time, the lawyer didn’t mishandle the proof.
The state Supreme Court rejected Williams’ arguments, saying that, “Despite practically 1 / 4 century of litigation in each state and federal courts, there isn’t any credible proof of precise innocence or any displaying of a constitutional error undermining confidence within the unique judgment.”
At the time of the trial, an inmate who shared a cell with Williams and a former girlfriend each stated Williams confessed to them that he was chargeable for the homicide. His attorneys have stated the 2 had been searching for reward cash.
In January, Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor, filed a movement to vacate or put aside Williams’ conviction and sentence, citing the DNA specialists who stated Williams was excluded from DNA on the homicide weapon.
Ahead of that listening to, exams confirmed the DNA was per that of members of the prosecution crew from the unique trial, who had touched the knife with out gloves.
With that piece of proof allegedly contaminated, the workplace of Bell, a Democrat, and attorneys for Williams reached a deal that will spare Williams the demise penalty in trade for all times in jail with out parole.
A St. Louis County circuit decide and Gayle’s household additionally agreed to the deal, however state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, opposed it, and the state Supreme Court agreed.
A decide finally rejected the movement to vacate, a ruling Williams’ attorneys appealed to the state Supreme Court on Monday.
The NAACP additionally requested Missouri’s governor in a letter final week to cease the execution, saying it “would quantity to a horrible miscarriage of justice and a perpetuation of the worst of Missouri’s previous.”
“Taking the lifetime of Marcellus Williams can be an unequivocal assertion that when a White lady is killed, a Black man should die. And any Black man will do,” the NAACP stated within the letter.
Parson stated after Tuesday’s execution that “No juror nor decide has ever discovered Williams’s innocence declare to be credible.”
“Two a long time of judicial proceedings and greater than 15 judicial hearings upheld his responsible conviction, thus, the order of execution has been carried out,” Parson stated in an announcement
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Missouri, who represents the St. Louis space, known as for an finish to the demise penalty.
“Governor Mike Parson shamefully allowed an harmless man to be executed tonight. We should abolish this flawed, racist, inhumane apply as soon as and for all,” she wrote on X. “Rest in energy, Marcellus Williams.”
Tuesday was the third time Missouri sought to execute Williams. His execution was stayed twice earlier than — in 2015 and 2017.
In 2017, then-Gov. Eric Greitens, additionally a Republican, stayed Williams’ execution hours earlier than he was to have been put to demise after proof confirmed he was not the supply of the DNA on the homicide weapon.
Greitens convened a “board of inquiry” to analyze Williams’ claims, Williams’ attorneys argued in a movement searching for a U.S. Supreme Court keep, however that board was dissolved by Parson in 2023 with out issuing a report or suggestions.
“It is believed the BOI by no means reached a call,” Williams’ attorneys wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have granted the keep of execution, the court docket wrote.