Missouri Man Convicted of Murder Executed After Prosecutor Tried to Stop It

A Missouri man convicted of murder was executed Tuesday evening after efforts by his attorneys as well the prosecutor’s office to halt it were rejected by the governor and Supreme Court.

Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1998 murder Felicia “Lisha” Gayle, a newspaper reporter found stabbed to death in her home in the St. Louis area. He maintained his innocence.

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The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Tuesday denied a stay of execution. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, and the Missouri Supreme Court on Monday rejected requests to halt it.

Williams’ attorneys argued that his DNA was not on the murder weapon and that his 2001 trial was unfair, saying a trial lawyer dismissed a juror based on race and there was only one Black juror on the panel. Williams is Black.

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On Monday, a day before Williams was executed by injection, his lawyers argued before the Missouri Supreme Court that his execution should be halted because the trial lawyer for the prosecution in the 2001 trial said at a recent hearing that he struck a Black man from the jury because of his race and that the prosecution mishandled the murder weapon.

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Potts said the trial prosecutor struck a Black man “in part because he was a young man with glasses” and looked similar to Williams.

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The jury included one Black member.

Potts also argued that the trial prosecutor mishandled the murder weapon in bad faith when he held it without gloves, contaminating the knife, which they say could have been used to prove Williams was innocent. 

Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane denied that the potential juror was struck because he was Black, saying: “There’s no clearly convincing evidence here. There’s no evidence at all.”

He also said that based on procedures at the time, the attorney did not mishandle the evidence.

The state Supreme Court rejected Williams’ arguments, saying that, “Despite nearly a quarter century of litigation in both state and federal courts, there is no credible evidence of actual innocence or any showing of a constitutional error undermining confidence in the original judgment.”

At the time of the trial, an inmate who shared a cell with Williams and a former girlfriend both said Williams confessed to them that he was responsible for the murder. {snip}

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The NAACP also asked Missouri’s governor in a letter last week to stop the execution, saying it “would amount to a horrible miscarriage of justice and a perpetuation of the worst of Missouri’s past.”

“Taking the life of Marcellus Williams would be an unequivocal statement that when a White woman is killed, a Black man must die. And any Black man will do,” the NAACP said in the letter.

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U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Missouri, who represents the St. Louis area, said after the execution that “Governor Mike Parson shamefully allowed an innocent man to be executed tonight.”

“We must abolish this flawed, racist, inhumane practice once and for all,” she wrote on X. “Rest in power, Marcellus Williams.”

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