The Missouri Supreme Court and governor will uphold the decision to execute an innocent Black man.
Marcellus Williams is set to be executed on Tuesday, September 24th, at 6 pm by lethal injection for the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle. APNews reports that Gayle was a social worker and a former newspaper reporter who was stabbed during a burglary at her home in St. Louis.
Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson rejected Williams’ clemency request to save him from the death penalty and instead give him a life sentence in prison. The Missouri Supreme Court also rejected the request to stop the death penalty in order to give the lower court a chance to determine if a potential Black juror was excluded due to race.
Williams, 55, has claimed his innocence, however, his attorney did not bring that claim before the state’s highest court on Monday. They focused on the procedural errors in the jury selection and the mishandling of the murder weapon by the prosecution.
Judge Zel Fischer wrote in the state Supreme Court ruling, “Despite nearly a quarter century of litigation in both state and federal courts, there is no credible evidence of actual innocence or any showing of constitutional error undermining confidence in the original judgment.”
Parson argued that Williams had received multiple legal opportunities to assert his innocence and said that Williams’ attorney tried to “muddy the waters about DNA evidence” with claims rejected by the courts.
“Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence,” Parson said. “As such, Mr. Williams’ punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.”
Wesley Bell, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, has fought to have Williams’ execution to be set aside, citing questions of his guilt. He also has plans to appeal the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to spokesman, Chris King.
“Even for those who disagree on the death penalty, when there is a shadow of a doubt of any defendant’s guilt, the irreversible punishment of execution should not be an option,” Bell said.
Marcellus Williams’ case has gone viral on social media and is backed by the Midwest Innocence Project. “Missouri is poised to execute an innocent man, an outcome that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system,” Tricia Bushnell, a Midwest Innocence Project attorney said.
Williams has faced execution two other times before. In January 2015, he was less than a week from being executed until the state Supreme Court stopped it, which gave his lawyers more time to gather additional DNA testing.
The second time was in August 2017, however, he was hours away from being executed when then-Gov. Eric Greitens granted a stay and secured a panel of retired judges to examine the case. However, they never came to a conclusion.
Bell requested a hearing after he began to question the DNA evidence, which challenged Williams’ guilt. Days before the hearing on August 21, the new testing showed that members of the prosecutor’s office handled DNA on the knife from the crime scene without gloves.
Because the DNA evidence didn’t provide any new suspects, the Midwest Innocence Project attorneys came to a compromise with the prosecutor’s office which was Williams could enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for life in prison without parole.
In Williams’ original trial, prosecutors argued that he broke into Lisha Gayle’s home, heard the shower running, and then found a butcher’s knife. They also said that he stabbed the woman 43 times and stole her purse and her husband’s laptop as well as a jacket. His girlfriend later revealed that Williams sold the laptop a few days later.