Photo credit, Reuters
Article information
- Author, Rachel Looker
- Role, BBC News, Washington
-
September 25, 2024
Marcellus Williams was executed Tuesday evening in the US state of Missouri after spending more than twenty years on death row.
Williams, whose execution had already been stayed twice, maintained that he was innocent of the fatal stabbing of Felicia Gayle in 1998 in the St. Louis suburbs, and a large number of people opposed his death sentence.
A lawyer representing Williams argued that there was racial discrimination during jury selection and that DNA evidence in the case was mishandled.
Williams was denied a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court after Missouri’s highest court and the governor rejected his clemency requests earlier this week.
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In a rare move, the three liberal justices of the United States Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said Tuesday that they disagree with the conservative majority and would have granted a reprieve. They didn’t give a reason.
Missouri Department of Corrections communications director Karen Pojmann said no witnesses from Ms. Gayle’s family attended the execution, reported CBS, the BBC’s U.S. partner.
Williams’ son and two of his lawyers were present.
At his trial, prosecutors said Williams broke into Ms. Gayle’s home in August 1998 and stabbed her 43 times with a large butcher knife before stealing her purse and her laptop. husband.
Ms. Gayle was a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Williams’ lawyers had raised concerns about the handling of his case, arguing that black jurors were wrongly excluded from his trial.
They also said there was no forensic evidence linking Williams to the crime scene and that the murder weapon was mishandled, raising questions about the DNA evidence.
The prosecutor said he followed procedure at the time by touching the murder weapon without gloves after it had been tested at a crime lab.
Mr. Williams had requested clemency from the Republican governor of Missouri, Mike Parson, who refused it.
“We hope this decision brings closure to a case that has dragged on for decades, once again victimizing Ms. Gayle’s family,” Mr. Parson said in a statement.
“No juror, no judge has ever found Williams’ assertion 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’s an innocent man,” he said.
“Even the prosecution told the governor that he should not do it, this man is innocent.
The victim’s family favored a life sentence rather than the death penalty, while local prosecutors pushed for the conviction to be overturned.
His execution had been stayed twice – once in 2017 and once in 2015 – due to the discovery of male DNA on the murder weapon that did not match Williams’.
Then-state Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, had formed a group to review the case after granting the second reprieve, but he later left office amid scandal and the group did not never reached a conclusion.
Also concerned about the DNA, local prosecutor Wesley Bell requested a hearing.
But at that point, it was discovered that the DNA evidence had been tampered with by someone from the prosecutor’s office touching the knife without gloves, and the hearing was canceled.
“This result did not serve the interests of justice,” Mr. Bell said in a statement Tuesday.
“If there is even a shadow of doubt about the innocence of the accused, the death penalty should never be an option.
Midwest Innocence Project, a legal group whose lawyers represented Williams,
