Photo credit, Reuters
Article information
- Author, Rachel Looker
- Role, BBC News, Washington
September 25, 2024
Marcellus Williams was executed Tuesday night in the U.S. state of Missouri after spending more than twenty years on death row.
Williams, whose execution had already been postponed twice, maintained that he was innocent of the fatal stabbing of Felicia Gayle in 1998 in the suburbs of St. Louis, and a large number of people had opposed his death sentence.
A lawyer representing Williams argued that there had been racial discrimination during jury selection and that the DNA evidence in the case had been mishandled.
Williams was denied a last-minute stay by the U.S. Supreme Court, after the highest court in Missouri and the governor rejected his clemency requests earlier in the week.
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In a rare move, the three liberal justices of the U.S. Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – stated on Tuesday that they disagreed with the conservative majority and would have granted a stay. They did not provide a reason.
The communications director for the Missouri Department of Corrections, Karen Pojmann, stated that no witnesses from Ms. Gayle’s family attended the execution, CBS, the BBC’s American partner, reported.
Williams’ son and two of his lawyers were present.
During his trial, prosecutors claimed that Williams broke into Ms. Gayle’s home in August 1998 and stabbed her 43 times with a large butcher knife before stealing her handbag and her husband’s laptop.
Ms. Gayle was a social worker and a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Williams’ lawyers expressed concerns about the handling of his case, arguing that Black jurors had been wrongly excluded from his trial.
They also stated that there was no forensic evidence linking Williams to the crime scene and that the murder weapon had been mishandled, raising questions about the DNA evidence.
The prosecutor stated that he followed the procedure at the time by touching the murder weapon without gloves after it had been tested in a crime lab.
Mr. Williams had requested clemency from Missouri’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, who denied it.
“We hope this decision will put an end to a case that has dragged on for decades, victimizing Ms. Gayle’s family once again,” Mr. Parson said in a statement.
“No juror, no judge has ever found Williams’ claim of innocence credible.
Many people, including British billionaire Richard Branson, campaigned against the execution, the third in Missouri this year.
Mr. Branson told the BBC earlier on Tuesday that he had spent part of the day looking into the Williams case.
“He is innocent,” he said.
“Even the prosecutor told the governor that he shouldn’t go ahead, this man is innocent.
The victim’s family had advocated for a life sentence instead of the death penalty, while local prosecutors had pushed for the conviction to be overturned.
His execution had been postponed twice – once in 2017 and once in 2015 – due to the discovery of male DNA on the murder weapon that did not match Williams’ DNA.
The then governor of the state, Eric Greitens, a Republican, formed a group to review the case after granting the second stay, but he subsequently left office amid a scandal, and the group never reached a conclusion.
Also concerned about the DNA, the local prosecutor, Wesley Bell, requested a hearing.
But by that time, it was discovered that the DNA evidence had been compromised by someone in the prosecutor’s office who had touched the knife without gloves, and the hearing was canceled.
“This outcome did not serve the interests of justice,” Mr. Bell said in a statement on Tuesday.
“If there is even a shadow of a doubt about the defendant’s innocence, the death penalty should never be an option.
Midwest Innocence Project, a legal group whose lawyers represented Williams,