The judicial murder of Marcellus Williams

The state of Missouri executed Marcellus “Khalifah” Williams on Tuesday night, despite knowing he was most likely innocent of the crime for which he was convicted.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though he had always maintained his innocence in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle.

The state of Missouri killed Marcellus Williams by injecting him with a toxic chemical compound known to cause extreme pain and suffering.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the prosecutors who tried him decided that his conviction should be overturned.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after several jurors who had voted for his conviction and death sentence said they now regretted their verdict and wanted him released.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the state admitted that the evidence used to convict him had been mishandled and distorted by a sloppy police investigation.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime scene.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though future black jurors were arbitrarily excluded from the jury.

The state of Missouri executed Williams despite revelations that its prosecutor had excluded a black juror because he said the juror “looked like Williams' brother.”

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though its jury consisted of 11 whites and one black.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the two witnesses against him were known liars.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the two witnesses against him were both felons.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the two witnesses against him changed their statements several times before the trial.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after both witnesses against him learned of a $10,000 reward offered by the victim's family.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though both witnesses against him were treated leniently in pending lawsuits.

The state of Missouri executed Williams despite false testimony from “incentivized witnesses” being the leading cause of wrongful convictions.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though one of the witnesses against him was a prison informant.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though 11 of the 54 people exonerated in Missouri were convicted based on the testimony of prison informants.

The state of Missouri executed Williams despite data showing that St. Louis capital defendants were 3.5 times more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim was white and the defendant was white. as in the Williams case.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though he had turned his life around in prison, becoming an imam, a mentor to other prisoners, and a poet. Even on death row, Williams remained a “dutiful” father, according to his children.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the Missouri Supreme Court stayed his execution nine years ago and appointed a special commissioner to review DNA testing for potentially exculpatory evidence.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though DNA testing conducted in 2016 revealed that Williams was not the source of the male DNA found on the murder weapon.

The state of Missouri executed Williams despite then-Governor Eric Greitens granting him a reprieve on August 22, 2017, after he had eaten his last meal and just hours before his scheduled execution.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after the new governor, Mike Parson Parsons, illegally dissolved the investigative commission before it had a chance to release its report on the DNA evidence that cleared Williams of the murder.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though St. Louis District Attorney Wesley Bell said the DNA results and lack of other evidence in the case “cast unrelenting doubt on Mr. Williams' conviction and sentence.”

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though the DNA expert who reviewed the evidence in the case asked, “How innocent do you have to be to avoid execution?”

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though Williams and prosecutors had agreed that he would enter an Alford plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new life sentence without parole. (The plea was not an admission of guilt and would not have prevented him from appealing his conviction.)

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though a judge approved the plea deal.

The state of Missouri executed Williams despite Gayle's family urging that his life be spared. (The desire of murder victims' families for retributive justice is often used by prosecutors as justification for executing death row inmates. However, when these families object to killing people in the name of their murdered loved ones, their wishes and moral beliefs are ignored.)

The state of Missouri executed Williams despite evidence that executions have a deterrent effect on homicides and other crimes.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after six “pro-life” Supreme Court justices refused to grant a stay to consider evidence of his innocence.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after a Supreme Court that had granted only 11 stays of execution out of 270 requests over the past decade rejected him.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to speak out against the execution of an innocent black man.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though at least 200 people on death row have been acquitted since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973.

The state of Missouri executed Williams after the Democratic Party removed her opposition to the death penalty from its platform. The 2020 and 2016 Democratic platforms called for the abolition of the death penalty, which they called “a cruel and unusual form of punishment” that has “no place” in the nation.

The state of Missouri executed Williams knowing full well that the state's attorney general's office has rejected every case of innocence for the past 30 years.

The state of Missouri executed Williams even though at least 20 probably innocent people have been executed in the United States since 1989. Their names are:

+ Carlos DeLuna (Texas, executed 1989)

+ Ruben Cantu (Texas, executed 1993)

+ Larry Griffin (Missouri, executed 1995)

+ Joseph O'Dell (Virginia, executed 1997)

+ David Spence (Texas, executed 1997)

+ Leo Jones (Florida, executed 1998)

+ Gary Graham (Texas, executed 2000)

+ Claude Jones (Texas, executed 2000)

+ Cameron Todd Willingham (Texas, executed 2004)

+ Sedley Alley (Tennessee, completed 2006)

+ Troy Davis (Georgia, executed 2011)

+ Lester Bower (Texas, executed 2015)

+ Brian Terrell (Georgia, executed 2015)

+ Richard Masterson (Texas, executed 2016)

+ Robert Pruett (Texas, executed 2017)

+ Carlton Michael Gary (Georgia, executed 2018)

+ Domineque Ray (Alabama, executed 2019)

+ Larry Swearingen (Texas, executed 2019)

+ Walter Barton (Missouri, executed 2020)

+ Nathaniel Woods (Alabama, executed 2020)

The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams, making him the 21st person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated, despite credible evidence of his innocence.

The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams and plans to execute Christopher Leroy Collings in December.

The state of Missouri plans to execute another innocent man, Robert Roberson, on October 17th.