Marcellus Williams executed in Missouri after 20 years on death row

Marcellus Williams was put to death on Tuesday evening in Missouri, following over twenty years on death row.

Williams, who had previously delayed two executions, insisted that he was not guilty of the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle in a St. Louis suburb. Many individuals voiced their opposition to his death penalty.

A lawyer for Williams claimed that there was unfair racial bias in the process of choosing jurors, and that the DNA evidence in this case was not properly handled.

Williams was refused a last-minute stay by the US Supreme Court after both Missouri's highest court and the governor turned down his pleas for clemency earlier this week.

In an unusual step, the three liberal justices of the US Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – expressed their dissent on Tuesday against the conservative majority's decision and indicated that they would have opted to put a hold on it. They did not provide an explanation for their position.

During the trial, the prosecutors described how Williams forced his way into Ms. Gayle's house in August 1998. They claimed he attacked her with a large butcher knife, leaving 43 stab wounds, before taking her purse and her husband's laptop.

Ms. Gayle worked as a social worker and was previously a journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Williams' attorneys raised issues regarding how his case was managed, claiming that black jurors were improperly excluded from the jury during his trial.

They also mentioned that there was no forensic proof connecting Williams to the crime scene, and that the murder weapon had been improperly handled, which cast doubt on the DNA evidence.

The prosecutor in the trial stated that he adhered to the correct process by handling the murder weapon without gloves once it had been examined in a crime lab.

Williams sought clemency from Missouri's Republican governor, Mike Parson, but his request was turned down.

"Dealing with cases of capital punishment is one of the toughest challenges we face in the governor's office. However, ultimately I adhere to the law and have faith in the fairness of our courts," Parson stated on Monday.

Mr. Williams has fully utilized all legal options available to him and gone through the court system, participating in more than 15 hearings in an effort to prove his innocence and reverse his conviction.

Numerous individuals, such as British billionaire Richard Branson, advocated against the execution, marking the third one to take place in Missouri this year.

The victim's family preferred a life sentence rather than the death penalty, while local prosecutors were seeking to have the conviction reversed.

His execution had been postponed twice—first in 2015 and again in 2017—because male DNA found on the weapon used in the murder did not match Williams.

After granting a second stay, the state's governor at the time, Eric Greitens, who was a Republican, set up a committee to look into the case. However, he resigned due to a scandal, and as a result, the committee was never able to reach a conclusion.

Wesley Bell, the local prosecuting attorney, expressed his worries about the DNA evidence and asked for a hearing.

However, it was revealed that the DNA evidence had been compromised because someone from the prosecutor's office handled the knife without wearing gloves, leading to the cancellation of the hearing.

The Midwest Innocence Project, a legal organization that has been representing Williams, sought to negotiate an arrangement with the prosecutor's office. Under this agreement, Williams would plead no contest to a charge of first-degree murder in return for a life sentence in prison.

However, the Missouri Supreme Court intervened, preventing the agreement from moving forward and decided that the death penalty would remain in effect.

Tricia Rojo Bushnell, the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project and a lawyer for Williams, mentioned to CBS, a news partner of the BBC, before the execution that the state is about to carry out the death penalty on an innocent individual. She stated that this situation raises serious doubts about the integrity of the entire criminal justice system.