JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Lawyers for the Missouri man scheduled to be executed Tuesday afternoon have filed another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court alleging racial bias and constitutional errors in the trial.
Marcellus Williams, 55, has long maintained his innocence in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former newspaper reporter who was repeatedly stabbed during a burglary in suburban St. Louis. The execution was opposed by Gayle’s family and the prosecutor’s office which put Williams on death row – an unprecedented combination.
“The family determined closure because Marcellus was allowed to live,” the clemency petition said. “The execution of Marcellus was unnecessary.”
Williams’ hopes of having his sentence commuted to life in prison suffered double setbacks when, almost simultaneously, Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency and the Missouri Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of execution.
Attorneys working on behalf of Williams filed a motion late Monday challenging the state Supreme Court’s decision.
“We have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution of Marcellus Williams on Tuesday based on revelations from prosecutors that he eliminated at least one Black juror before the trial based on race,” Tricia Bushnell, an attorney for Mr. Williams, said in a news release.
The prosecutor in the 2001 murder case, Keith Larner, testified at an August hearing that he struck one of the potential Black jurors in part because he looked like Williams — a statement Williams’ attorneys claimed showed improper racial bias.
Bushnell said Larner removed six of the seven Black potential jurors. The jury eventually had 11 white members and one Black member. Larner insisted that the jury selection process was fair.
The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision Friday afternoon, affirmed the lower court’s decision to reject Williams’s objection.
“Despite nearly a quarter century of litigation in state and federal courts, there is no credible evidence of actual innocence or showing constitutional error that undermines confidence in the original trial,” wrote Missouri Supreme Court Justice Zel Fischer.
Parson accused Williams’ lawyers of trying to “muddy the waters on DNA evidence” with claims that courts have repeatedly rejected.
“Nothing from the actual facts of this case has led me to believe in Mr. Williams’s innocence,” Parson said in a statement.
Parson, a former sheriff, never granted clemency in a death penalty case. Williams’ execution will be the third in Missouri this year and the 100th since the state resumed executions in 1989.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell has sought to set aside Williams’ sentence, citing questions about his guilt. His office joined attorneys from the Midwest Innocence Project in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stay it.
“Even for those who do not agree on the death penalty, when there is a shadow of doubt about the guilt of any defendant, the irreversible punishment of execution should not be an option,” said Bell in a statement.
This marks the third time Williams has faced execution. He was less than a week away from lethal injection in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court overturned it, allowing time for lawyers to seek additional DNA testing.
He was a few hours away from being executed in August 2017 when Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, allowed a stay and appointed a panel of retired judges to review the case. But the panel never reached a conclusion.
Questions about DNA evidence also prompted Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But the day before the August 21 hearing, new testing showed that the DNA on the knife belonged to a member of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab test.
Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, the Midwest Innocence Project lawyers reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole.
Judge Bruce Hilton signed the agreement, as did Gayle’s family. But at the urging of the Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with the evidence hearing, which took place on August 28.
Hilton ruled on September 12 that the conviction for first-degree murder and the death sentence will stand, noting that Williams’ objections had all been previously rejected. The decision was made Monday by the state Supreme Court.
Prosecutors in the original trial Williams said he broke into Gayle’s home on August 11, 1998, heard the water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. Gayle, a former reporter for St. Her husband’s wallet and laptop computer were stolen.
Authorities said Williams stole his jacket to hide the blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked if she would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she saw a wallet and laptop in the car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.
Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 when Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the murder and gave details about it.
Williams’ attorney said fingerprints, bloody shoe prints, hair and other evidence at the crime scene did not match Williams.
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Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
