The Supreme Courtroom refused to dam Missouri from executing Marcellus Williams amid questions in regards to the jury choice course of and key proof utilized in convicting him of homicide in 2001.
Williams, 55, who maintains his innocence, is scheduled to be executed by deadly injection on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CDT.
Moments earlier than, the Supreme Courtroom denied his emergency requests to halt the execution. The three justices appointed by Democratic presidents, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, voted to dam it.
A jury convicted Williams within the 1998 homicide of former newspaper reporter Felicia Gayle, who was stabbed 43 occasions with the knife left lodged in her neck.
However now, the St. Louis County prosecuting lawyer, who introduced the case, now not stands behind the conviction over considerations Williams’s constitutional rights had been violated and he could also be harmless. Courtroom information present that the sufferer’s widower additionally doesn’t need the demise penalty used.
The Midwest Innocence Challenge backed Williams’s protection, along with his authorized staff in courtroom filings calling his execution a “horrifying injustice” that reveals “systemic problems bigger than even Mr. Williams’ case.”
“The ever-present undercurrent of residual doubt as to Mr. Williams’ innocence plagues this case, even as his execution looms. Mr. Williams’ conviction and death sentence were secured through a trial riddled with constitutional errors, racism, and bad faith, much of which only came to light recently,” they wrote of their emergency request to delay the execution.
Williams latched onto revelations that the homicide weapon was mishandled forward of trial. Final month, new take a look at outcomes indicated that the knife had DNA on it belonging to 2 folks concerned in prosecuting the case; a trial lawyer has additionally admitted to repeatedly touching the knife with out gloves.
Williams’s authorized staff additionally claimed the lawyer lately admitted that he struck a possible juror within the case partially as a result of they had been Black, which might run afoul of Supreme Courtroom precedent.
The state contests that interpretation. The lawyer moments later mentioned, “no, absolutely not,” when requested if the particular person was struck due to their race, saying that it was as a result of he and Williams each wore glasses and had related piercing eyes.
“He struck this potential juror in part because he thought Williams and this potential juror looked similar, but not because he was black,” the state wrote in courtroom filings.
Williams has spent greater than 20 years on demise row and has been on the cusp of execution a number of occasions. However it now seems his scheduled injection is about to maneuver ahead on Tuesday at a state jail in Bonne Terre, Mo.
Then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) paused Williams’s execution in 2017 and charged a board with gathering proof about whether or not he was harmless. Gov. Mike Parson (R), who succeeded Greitens, later disbanded the board and final yr started a push to set an execution date.
After the Missouri Supreme Courtroom on Monday cleared the best way for the execution to proceed, Parson declined to intervene to dam it.
“Mr. Williams has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction. No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld,” Parson mentioned in an announcement earlier on Tuesday.
The Supreme Courtroom not often agrees to take emergency motion to dam executions. It beforehand denied 14 requests this yr whereas solely granting one, in line with an evaluation by The Hill.
Williams asserted that his case mimics one the Supreme Courtroom is about to quickly take into account subsequent. Demise row inmate Richard Glossip’s trial faces related scrutiny, and the Supreme Courtroom has set oral arguments in his enchantment for subsequent month.
As in comparison with Williams’s enchantment to the excessive courtroom on its emergency docket, Glossip’s case is being heard in its regular course, with a call anticipated by summer season 2025.
