DNA evidence has suggested for years that Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams was wrongfully convicted of Felicia Gayle’s murder, and yet the final weeks before his September 24 execution date have seen a series of unexpected twists.
That evidence was enough for Gayle’s family and the former Missouri Attorney General in 2017. In January of that year, St. Louis District Attorney Wesley Bell’s office changed its mind about the 2000 murder conviction and filed a petition to stop the execution.
Williams, a 54-year-old grandfather named Khaliifah, has maintained his innocence since 1998.
Yet Justice Minister Andrew Bailey is reportedly relentless in his efforts to execute Williams. Throughout the weekend, arguments were filed in the Missouri Supreme Court against a district judge’s denied motion to overturn Williams’ 1998 murder conviction. On Monday, Williams’ lawyers argued that the prosecutor’s recent admission that he dismissed black jurors should be enough to overturn the verdict. The attorney general’s office denies those claims.
Hours after Monday’s hearing, the judges voted unanimously to uphold Williams’ conviction and allow his execution despite a pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A request for clemency to the governor was rejected before the end of the day.
Advocates also say the case shows how the justice system works in this Midwestern state. The way the government incarcerates, criminalizes, monitors, prosecutes and imposes the death penalty on black and poor people is typical of the South, says Michelle Smith, co-founder of the nonprofit Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.
“Our roots are deep in this mindset of dehumanizing black people, poor people and brown people,” Smith said. “I think Missouri is a place where … our government, courts, etc. are very deeply geared toward punishment and retribution rather than actual justice,” Smith said.
Read more: Acquitted of murder charges decades ago, Virginia man serving life sentence fights for his freedom
More than half of Missouri’s 55 wrongful conviction cases involved black acquittals, including three who were sentenced to death, according to the National Registry of Exonerations database, which has tracked wrongful convictions since 1989. Over the past decade, the number of death penalty cases in the Show Me State has “dramatically declined,” and there has been “only one unanimous jury decision” to sentence someone to death, according to Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Since last year, Bailey has made concerted efforts to prevent the release of acquitted prisoners from prison, and in some cases has even supported their execution, despite clear evidence of wrongful conviction.
But Williams is used to this, say supporters like Smith, who contacted Williams three years ago as part of her lobbying efforts.
This is not the first time the Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date for Williams.
“He’s been through this before – three times,” Smith said, referring to the first stay of execution granted by then-Governor Eric Greitens in August 2017.
DNA evidence and jailhouse testimony are two factors that help prove a wrongful conviction. According to the National Registry of Exonerations database, 848 people nationwide have been wrongfully convicted, in part, based on jailhouse testimony and post-trial DNA testing. More than half of those exonerated are black.
“What makes it so hard for them to let this guy prove his innocence? That doesn’t make sense to me,” Sabrina Smith, a Mississippi death row defendant and no relation to Michelle Smith, said in an interview with Capital B.
“They know they have no evidence, but they’re still willing to kill someone. That’s the part that honestly really makes me angry, because the United States is in such a hurry to kill its own citizens and it doesn’t make sense.”
How can an innocent person still be executed?
Williams’ conviction was based on the testimony of two witnesses – a jailhouse informant and an ex-girlfriend – who each faced separate, unrelated criminal charges, so testimony could have provided the prosecution with benefits, such as a bounty.
At an evidentiary hearing in the Williams case on August 28, the prosecutor revealed that he mishandled the murder weapon and left his own DNA behind. He also admitted to excluding black people from the jury because, for example, he believed Williams was related to a potential juror because of his resemblance to him.
St. Louis County District Court Judge Bruce F. Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that he would not overturn Williams’ conviction for the 1998 stabbing attack on Gayle.
Madeline Sieren, a spokeswoman for Bailey’s office, said they stand by the sentencing based on Hilton’s verdict.
“Marcellus Williams was never found innocent. A judge just last week issued a verdict affirming his conviction,” Sieren wrote in an email to Capital B.
In a unanimous written decision, Missouri Supreme Court Justice Zel M. Fischer agreed with Hilton. “There is no credible evidence of actual innocence or of any constitutional error that undermines confidence in the original verdict,” Fischer wrote.
Hilton’s ruling essentially ignored DNA evidence examined in 2016 that showed that Williams was not the source of the DNA on the murder weapon or the bloody footprints found in Gayle’s St. Louis home.
In 2017, Williams’ execution was put on hold as an advisory panel appointed by Greitens was tasked with reexamining his case in light of newly discovered DNA evidence. In 2021, Missouri law was changed to give elected prosecutors the ability to reexamine past convictions when allegations of misconduct surface.
Before this change, a 2016 Missouri legal doctrine set a standard that only allowed death row inmates to be released. People like Christopher Dunn, who had been sentenced to life without parole, remained wrongfully incarcerated. After 34 years, Dunn was finally released in July.
In June 2023, Republican Governor Mike Parson dissolved the advisory board before it could present its findings or make a recommendation to the governor to pardon Williams.
Bailey, a Republican who will be appointed by Parson in 2023 and is running for a full term this year, then set a second execution date.
“It’s all political,” said Sabrina Smith, a previously acquitted attorney and communications assistant for Witness to Innocence.
Earlier this year, Bell’s office joined the Midwest Innocence Project, which represents Williams, in filing a motion to overturn his 24-year-old conviction. National civil rights organizations such as the NAACP have launched an online petition urging Parson to intervene.
“There are detailed and well-documented concerns about the integrity of Mr. Williams’ conviction,” Bell said in a Sept. 12 statement following Hilton’s decision. “The Gayle family has said that while they want this case to be resolved, they do not want the death penalty to be carried out against Mr. Williams.”
“I continue to agree with them. Along with others who believe the evidence in this case does not justify execution, I will continue to work to prevent that outcome.”
The execution is scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m. local time.
“I’m worried, but Khaliifah isn’t,” said Michelle Smith.
During his time in prison, Williams became an imam and mentor to other inmates.
“Sometimes he calls me to see if I’m OK,” Michelle Smith said with a giggle about the Ferguson native. “That’s just the kind of person he is.”
Before being incarcerated, Williams was the father of Marcellus Williams Jr., who was still in elementary school when his father was sent to prison. Despite the challenges of raising children behind bars, Williams has done his best to fulfill his responsibilities as a father to his son. Although Marcellus Jr. grew up without his father’s physical presence, their shared faith strengthened their bond and allowed Marcellus Jr. to pass on their name to his son.
“And because he’s a very religious person – he’s a very devout Muslim,” Michelle Smith said of the legal challenges Williams faced while on death row with 11 other people. “His faith definitely got him through all these years.”
