Missouri executes man despite DA's objection

What happened

Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection last night after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, with dissent from the court's three liberal justices. Williams, 55, was convicted of the 1998 stabbing death of Felicia Gayle in suburban St. Louis. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) and the Missouri Supreme Court rejected pleas for clemency Monday night from Williams, the prosecutor's office that secured his 2001 conviction and advocates who said he was likely innocent. Gayle's family also opposed the execution.

Who said what

Williams, who maintained his innocence, got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but Parson revoked his predecessor's stay of execution and disbanded a board set up to study DNA evidence from the case. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in January to vacate the conviction, saying none of the forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene — hair, bloody fingerprints and shoeprints, and DNA on the murder weapon — matched Williams, and the two main witnesses were compromised. Williams' lawyers, Bell and Gayle's family agreed in August to commute the sentence to life in prison, but Attorney General Andrew Bailey challenged the deal and set an execution date. 

Parson said after the execution he hoped it gave "finality to a case that's languished for decades." NAACP President Derrick Johnson said "Missouri lynched another innocent Black man."

What next?

Williams was one of four death row inmates scheduled to be executed this week — "an unusually high number" after years of death penalty decline, The Associated Press said. "Putting an innocent person to death" is "an inherent risk of capital punishment," CNN said, citing Death Penalty Information Center data showing at least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up