Marcellus Williams executed in Missouri

The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams. The execution followed the denial of a U.S. Supreme Court request to stop Williams' execution. The Supreme Court's decision came a day after the Missouri Supreme Court and Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined to intervene on Williams' behalf. Williams was convicted in 2001 of the 1998 premeditated murder of Felicia Gayle in St. Louis. Gayle was a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Evidence, including the victim's purse and a laptop, was found in Williams' vehicle, and witnesses testified that he confessed, the state argued. Williams' girlfriend asked him why he was wearing a jacket on a hot day. She later saw the purse and laptop in his car and said Williams sold the computer a day or two later. St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell has sought to overturn Williams' conviction because of doubts about his guilt. His office joined attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project in asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay. “Even for those who oppose the death penalty, irrevocable execution should not be an option when there is even the slightest doubt about a defendant's guilt,” Bell said in a statement. Courts have consistently upheld the verdict over the past 15 years. The Missouri Supreme Court said in its decision this week that the DNA evidence could not prove Williams' innocence because it was more consistent with investigators' evidence than that of an unknown assailant. “Mr. Williams has exhausted every legal avenue and exhausted every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to prove his innocence and overturn his conviction. No jury or court, at the trial, appellate, or Supreme Court levels, has ever found Mr. Williams's claims of innocence to be substantive,” Parson said Monday. “Ultimately, his guilty verdict and death sentence were affirmed. Nothing on the actual facts of this case has led me to believe in Mr. Williams' innocence; therefore, Mr. Williams' punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.” Williams was hours away from execution in August 2017 when then-Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay and appointed a panel of retired judges to investigate the case. But that panel never reached a conclusion. Questions about DNA evidence also prompted Bell to request a hearing contesting Williams' guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new tests showed that the DNA on the knife came from prosecutors' employees who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests. With no DNA evidence pointing to another suspect, attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project reached a compromise with prosecutors: Williams would enter a new, unconditional plea to premeditated murder in exchange for a new life sentence without parole. Judge Bruce Hilton signed off on the agreement, as did Gayle's family. But at the urging of Missouri's Andrew Bailey, the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to face an evidentiary hearing, which was held Aug. 28. Hilton ruled Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams' arguments had all previously been rejected. That decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court on Monday. This is the third execution in Missouri in 2024.