The execution of Marcellus Williams is ready to proceed as scheduled Tuesday after the Missouri Supreme Courtroom and the state’s governor each rejected pleas to halt the process.
An lawyer for Williams argued Monday that the state Supreme Courtroom ought to halt the deadly injection as a result of a trial lawyer prevented a Black man who he thought seemed just like the defendant from serving on the jury, however the court docket rejected that argument.
“Regardless of practically 1 / 4 century of litigation in each state and federal courts, there’s no credible proof of precise innocence or any exhibiting of a constitutional error undermining confidence in the unique judgment,” the court docket mentioned in its choice.
Williams is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. CT on Tuesday for the 1998 stabbing demise of Lisha Gayle within the St. Louis suburb of College Metropolis.
Williams, 55, has asserted his innocence. However his lawyer didn’t pursue that declare Monday earlier than the state’s highest court docket, as a substitute specializing in alleged procedural errors in jury choice and the prosecution’s alleged mishandling of the homicide weapon.
The state Supreme Courtroom ought to “appropriate an injustice” both by declaring {that a} prosecutor wrongly excluded a possible juror for racial causes or by sending the case again to a decrease court docket to find out that concern, lawyer Jonathan Potts argued on behalf of Williams.
Republican Missouri Legal professional Normal Andrew Bailey’s workplace has argued for the execution to proceed. The trial prosecutor has denied that he had racial motivations in eradicating potential jurors and did nothing improper — primarily based on procedures on the time — by touching the homicide weapon with out gloves after it had already been examined by against the law lab, Assistant Legal professional Normal Michael Spillane mentioned in arguments to the state Supreme Courtroom.
Williams had requested clemency from Republican Gov. Mike Parson, an ask that targeted largely on how Gayle’s family members need the sentence commuted to life in jail with out parole. However Parson on Monday mentioned the execution would proceed following the state Supreme Courtroom’s ruling.
“Capital punishment circumstances are among the hardest points we have now to deal with within the Governor’s Workplace, however when it comes right down to it, I observe the regulation and belief the integrity of our judicial system,” Parson mentioned in a press release Monday. “Mr. Williams has exhausted due course of and each judicial avenue, together with over 15 hearings making an attempt to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction. No jury nor court docket, together with on the trial, appellate, and Supreme Courtroom ranges, have ever discovered advantage in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims. On the finish of the day, his responsible verdict and sentence of capital punishment had been upheld. Nothing from the actual information of this case have led me to consider in Mr. Williams’ innocence, as such, Mr. Williams’ punishment will probably be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Courtroom.”
Parson, a former sheriff, has been in workplace for 11 executions and has by no means granted clemency. The NAACP had additionally urged Parson to cease the execution.
“Missouri is poised to execute an harmless man, an end result that calls into query the legitimacy of your entire legal justice system,” mentioned Tricia Rojo Bushnell, govt director of the Midwest Innocence Mission and an lawyer representing Williams. “Given every thing we learn about Marcellus Williams’ case—together with the brand new revelations that the trial prosecutor eliminated no less than one Black juror due to his race, and opposition to this execution from the sufferer’s household and the sitting Prosecuting Legal professional—the courts should step in to stop this irreparable injustice.”
Attorneys for Williams already had an enchantment earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. However in a brand new submitting Monday evening, attorneys representing Williams requested the U.S. Supreme Courtroom to remain his execution till an analogous case is dominated on.
“This case carefully resembles that of Richard Glossip, who stays on demise row in Oklahoma as a result of the state court docket equally refused to just accept the State’s confession of error,” the Innocence Mission mentioned in a press release Monday evening. “Mr. Williams asks the Supreme Courtroom to remain his execution pending decision of the Glossip case, which is ready for oral argument on October 9.”
The execution can be the third in Missouri this 12 months and the a hundredth for the reason that state resumed executions in 1989.
Williams was lower than every week away from execution in January 2015 when the state Supreme Courtroom known as it off, permitting time for his attorneys to pursue extra DNA testing.
He was simply hours away from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a keep after reviewing DNA proof that discovered no hint of Williams’ DNA on the knife used within the killing. Greitens appointed a panel of retired judges to look at the case, however the governor stepped down over an unrelated scandal and that panel by no means reached a conclusion.
Questions on DNA proof additionally led Democratic St. Louis County Prosecuting Legal professional Wesley Bell to request a listening to difficult Williams’ guilt. However days earlier than the Aug. 21 listening to, new testing confirmed that the DNA proof was spoiled as a result of members of the prosecutor’s workplace touched the knife with out gloves earlier than the unique trial.
The state Supreme Courtroom on Monday wrote in its ruling that DNA testing had really “undermined Prosecutor’s declare of precise innocence and absolutely helps the circuit court docket’s discovering that this proof neither reveals the existence of an alternate perpetrator nor excludes Williams because the assassin.”
With the DNA proof unavailable, Midwest Innocence Mission attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s workplace: Williams would enter a brand new, no-contest plea to first-degree homicide in alternate for a brand new sentence of life in jail with out parole.
Choose Bruce Hilton signed off on the settlement, as did Gayle’s household. However at Bailey’s urging, the Missouri Supreme Courtroom blocked the settlement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary listening to, which occurred Aug. 28.
Hilton dominated on Sept. 12 that the first-degree homicide conviction and demise sentence would stand, noting that his arguments all had been beforehand rejected.
“There isn’t a foundation for a court docket to search out that Williams is harmless, and no court docket has made such a discovering,” Hilton wrote.
On Tuesday, Williams’ lawyer argued that circumstances are completely different, as a result of the trial prosecutor had not beforehand been questioned in court docket by Williams’ lawyer in regards to the motive he eliminated a selected juror.
The prosecutor within the 2001 first-degree homicide case, Keith Larner, testified on the August listening to that the trial jury was truthful, regardless that it included only one Black member on the panel. Larner mentioned he struck one potential Black juror partly as a result of he seemed an excessive amount of like Williams. He did not clarify why he felt that mattered.
In a press release e-mailed to CBS affiliate KOMO-TV final week, Larner mentioned his “juror strikes of any Black jurors at trial have been affirmed as race-neutral and lawful, unanimously, by the Missouri Supreme Courtroom on a vote of 7-0 in 2003. Bell’s/Innocence Mission claims of improper jury choice are bogus.”
Bushnell instructed KOMO previous to Monday’s ruling that the August listening to was “the very first time that the prosecutor needed to testify below oath about his practices.”
“He admitted, that no less than partly, that race was a motive for putting jurors,” Bushnell mentioned. “No court docket has ever heard that, and the federal court docket that beforehand thought of the racial discrimination declare ought to have that info when it is making that call. The justification given for denying that declare beforehand is now completely rebutted by these admissions made by the prosecutor himself.”
The state Supreme Courtroom mentioned Monday nonetheless that when Larner was “particularly requested if a part of the rationale he struck juror quantity 64 was as a result of he was Black, the trial prosecutor replied: ‘No. Completely not,'” and mentioned Williams’ lawyer’s argument “cherry-picks the report, ignores the circuit court docket’s factual findings, and gives no persuasive justifications for reversing this Courtroom’s earlier deserves willpower of this declare.”
Bell on Monday mentioned in a press release, “Even for many who disagree on the demise penalty, when there’s a shadow of a doubt of any defendant’s guilt, the irreversible punishment of execution shouldn’t be an choice. Because the St. Louis County prosecutor, our workplace has questions on Mr. Williams’ guilt, but in addition in regards to the integrity of his conviction. For these causes we’ll proceed to do every thing in our energy to save lots of his life.”
Prosecutors at Williams’ unique trial mentioned he broke into Gayle’s dwelling on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water working within the bathe, and located a big butcher knife. Gayle, a social employee and former reporter for the St. Louis Put up-Dispatch, was stabbed 43 instances when she got here downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop computer laptop had been stolen.
Authorities mentioned Williams stole a jacket to hide blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend requested him why he would put on a jacket on a scorching day. The girlfriend mentioned she later noticed the purse and laptop computer in his automotive and that Williams offered the pc a day or two later. Police have mentioned they discovered gadgets belonging to Gayle in Williams’ automotive.
Prosecutors additionally cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 whereas Williams was jailed on unrelated expenses. Cole instructed prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and provided particulars about it.
Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole had been each convicted of felonies and needed a $10,000 reward. Parson on Monday mentioned in a press release the girlfriend “by no means requested the reward for info.”