MArcellus Williams was executed by the State of Missouri on Tuesday, September 24, despite doubts about his possible innocence. Williams died by lethal injection shortly after 6 p.m. in a state prison in Bonne Terre, St. Francois County, Missouri. He was 55 years old.
His death was met with widespread condemnation, particularly because neither the prosecution nor the victim’s family supported the execution.
Williams was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, a social worker and well-known reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who was killed in her home.
The St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office asked officials and the courts to cancel the execution because of concerns about jury selection (the vast majority of jurors were white) and possible racial bias – Williams was black, while Gayle was white. In addition, DNA evidence did not link Williams to the murder.
“Even for those who oppose the death penalty, irreversible execution should not be an option when there is even the slightest doubt about a defendant’s guilt,” St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell said in a statement, according to New York. Just.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the Missouri Supreme Court rejected and dismissed numerous attempts to stop the execution, including clemency requests from Williams’ attorneys, members of the victim’s family and prosecutors, as well as letters from the NAACP and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
On September 24, the US Supreme Court denied a stay of execution.
Following Williams’ execution, there was public outcry over doubts about his conviction, particularly since it was reported in August that new developments showed that the knife used in the murder was believed to be contaminated with DNA evidence obtained by a prosecutor and an investigator working on the case.
Williams’ poems and writings have gone viral on social media. A document confirmed by publications such as Newsweek shows Williams’ handwritten “final statement” before his death, which reads: “All praise is due to Allah in every situation!!!”
Many have also shared his poems, which have appeared in several online magazines and in the Kansas City star.
In the run-up to and after Williams’ death, many lawyers also pointed out that his story was not an isolated incident, but rather indicative of a larger phenomenon of racial injustice in the criminal justice system.
Several criminal justice activists and politicians are also calling for the abolition of the death penalty, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Missouri Representative Cori Bush and Derrick Johnson, CEO of the NAACP.
“The state of Missouri and our nation’s legal system failed Marcellus Williams, and as long as we retain the death penalty, we continue to perpetuate that depravity,” Bush said in a statement Tuesday night after Williams’ execution.
