Two death row inmates were executed Tuesday in the southern United States, including Marcellus Williams, who had maintained his innocence for more than 20 years, benefiting from a broad movement of support, including recently from the prosecutor’s office.
Marcellus Williams, 55, a black man, was convicted in 2001 of the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, a white former journalist, in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
He was executed by lethal injection early in the evening, along with Travis Mullis, 38, who was convicted in Texas of the 2008 murder of his 3-month-old baby, the prison administrations of those two states announced.
This brings to 16 the number of executions in the United States in 2024, including three since September 20, with two more scheduled for Thursday.
In Missouri, the victim was found stabbed 43 times with a kitchen knife during what appeared to be a burglary gone wrong.
Marcellus Williams, who had already been convicted of robberies and burglaries, was ultimately charged and sentenced to death based on the testimony of a former cellmate and an ex-partner, although his DNA was not found on the knife or on any of the fingerprints, blood or hair traces discovered at the crime scene.
Murder weapon compromised by prosecution
His execution was stayed by the Missouri Supreme Court in 2015 and then in 2017 by then-Governor Eric Greitens, who ordered a commission of inquiry. The decision followed an analysis that revealed that male DNA found on the knife was not that of Marcellus Williams.
But in 2023, his successor, Mike Parson, dissolved the commission before it could rule, and authorities restarted the process for execution.
In the meantime, the local prosecutor, based in particular on DNA analysis, initiated proceedings in 2024 to have the conviction quashed. On the eve of a recent hearing on this request for quashing, it emerged that the DNA fingerprints found on the weapon were those of two members of the prosecution team at the time.
But the Missouri court definitively rejected this appeal for annulment on Monday, thus authorizing the execution.
Governor Parson announced Tuesday that he would not grant a reprieve or commutation of the sentence to Marcellus Williams, saying in a statement that he “has confidence in the integrity of the justice system.”
British billionaire Richard Branson, who bought a full-page ad in the Kansas City Star on Monday to urge state residents to pressure their governor, lamented on X “a shameful day for Missouri and for Governor Mike Parson who failed in his duty to protect an innocent man from injustice.”
The NAACP, the leading advocacy organization for black Americans, and the local chapter of the influential Innocence Project, which fights against miscarriages of justice in the United States, have mobilized in support of Marcellus Williams.
Having exhausted all appeals at the Missouri level, his lawyers on Monday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay on the grounds that the selection of the jury that convicted him was discriminatory.
The jury had 11 white jurors and just one black juror following a controversial challenge process. But the conservative-majority Supreme Court rejected the request Tuesday, against the advice of the three progressive justices.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 U.S. states. Six others (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) observe a moratorium on executions by governor’s decision.
