U.S. Supreme Court denies Marcellus Williams’ appeals. MO execution to move forward
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied applications for a stay of execution for Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, who is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The three cases presented to the court were his last chance at avoiding lethal injection. On Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency for Williams. The Missouri Supreme Court denied an appeal brought by St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, who supports vacating Williams’ death sentence.
The 55-year-old was convicted in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle in the St. Louis area. He has maintained that he is innocent and that no forensic evidence ties him to the crime.
One of the three cases considered by the high court asked whether reversal is necessary when “a capital conviction is so infected with errors that the prosecutor who prosecuted the case no longer seeks to defend it.” It was brought by Williams’ legal team and Bell’s office.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have granted the stay of execution on that.
The other two cases argued that the trial prosecutor struck a potential juror from the pool because he was Black and questioned whether capital defendants have due process rights in the clemency process.
The court announced its decision shortly after 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Williams, said in a statement released by the Innocence Project, that his execution is not justice.
“We must all question any system that would allow this to occur,” she said. “The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with ‘finality’ over truth, justice, and humanity, at any cost.”
“Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power. Let it not be in vain. This should never happen, and we must not let it continue.”
Two petitions opposing Williams’ execution have garnered more than one million signatures, according to the Innocence Project. The execution is also opposed by Amnesty International, the NAACP, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat.
Gayle’s family has also said they do not want to see the execution carried out.
Williams was primarily convicted on the word of two witnesses who said he had confessed to them. One of them led authorities to his car, where some of Gayle’s belongings were located. Both of those witnesses have since died.
This story was originally published September 24, 2024 at 5:02 PM.
