Missouri inmate with innocence claim appeals to Supreme Court ahead of September 24 execution

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A Missouri death row inmate has launched a flurry of appeals ahead of his scheduled September 24 execution date, maintaining his innocence in the 1998 murder of St. Louis newspaper reporter Felicia Gayle.

Marcellus Williams, 55, has several avenues remaining that could halt the impending execution.

He has an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, asking whether he can claim his due process rights were violated when Missouri governor Mike Parson dissolved a board a previous governor set up in 2017 to consider whether Williams deserves clemency.

Separately, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which previously struck a deal for Williams to avoid a death sentence, has appealed before the Missouri Supreme Court to reverse a recent lower court decision upholding Williams’s conviction and scheduled execution.

Finally, Williams also has a clemency petition before Parson, which points to wishes from some of Gayle’s family members that the execution be canceled.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition, obtained by the Associated Press, reads. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

Williams was sentenced to death in 2001 for killing Gayle, who was stabbed 43 times in her home.

Since then, his case has had a long and winding path through the judicial system.

Most recently, with Williams still claiming innocence, local prosecutors agreed with court officials in August to a consent judgment, where the 55-year-old would accept punishment for the murder charge against him while formally expressing his innocence, serving a life sentence without parole instead of being executed.

The same day the agreement was announced, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked it from taking effect.

Attorneys for Williams, who is Black, argue Black jurors were wrongly excluded from the case, and that there’s no physical evidence linking the 55-year-old to the crime scene. They also argue that the DNA present on the murder weapon doesn’t match Williams.

This month, a county court sided with state officials, who argued testing on the weapon matched the trial prosecutor in the original conviction and one of his investigators, undercutting the innocence claims.

“(Williams’) remaining evidence amounts to nothing more than re-packaged arguments about evidence that was available at trial and involved in Williams’ unsuccessful direct appeal and post-conviction challenges,” the court held.

Missouri has executed two people so far this year, according to the Associated Press.

The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.