Content Warning: Death Penalty, Racism
Marcellus Williams was executed by the state of Missouri on September 21, 2024, despite his murder conviction having been challenged by a prosecutor. Up until his very last breath, Marcellus Williams upheld his innocence, and his execution was opposed by more than 100 demonstrators outside the prison grounds and millions of Americans. However, both the Missouri Supreme Court and Governor Mike Parson were not convinced by his claim of innocence.
Marcellus Williams was convicted of the murder of Felicia Gayle in 2001. Since then, he had been faced with execution twice previously. In 2015, the Missouri Supreme Court stopped his execution and appointed a special master to review the questionable DNA testing that was performed on the handle of the murder weapon. However, the special master sent the case back to the Missouri Supreme Court, so another execution date was set for 2017. The second time, then-Governor Eric Greitens placed a hold on his execution and appointed a panel of retired judges to investigate the DNA evidence. Again, the board was dissolved and never issued a final report.
Since then, Wesley Bell, a St. Louis County prosecutor, has tried to overturn Mr. Williams’ conviction on multiple grounds, including the questionable DNA results and various constitutional violations that happened during Mr. Williams’ trial. On September 12, the judge declined to dismiss Mr. Williams’ conviction.
In its opinion issued on September 23, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court denied review. Alleged in the cause of action were multiple due process violations in Mr. Williams’ original criminal trial, including the fact that Mr. Williams’s trial counsel was ineffective in both failing to impeach the State’s witnesses and failing to provide different mitigation evidence on Mr. Williams’ background. Additionally, and most strikingly, it was alleged that the State unconstitutionally excluded two people for the venire on the basis of race.
In fact, in Mr. Williams’ original criminal trial, the State’s cases rested almost exclusively on the testimony of two witnesses, a jailhouse informant, and Mr. Williams’ girlfriend. Unbeknownst to the defense, these two witnesses’ testimony were incentivized by monetary rewards and promises of leniency in their own criminal cases. Further, evidence arose showing these two individuals were known fabricators. For all these factors, Mr. Williams’ trial attorney was not able to impeach their testimony at trial, effectively denying Mr. Williams his constitutionally dictated due process rights.
Further, Mr. Williams’ trial attorney failed to present any evidence at sentencing that Mr. Williams had been subject “to physical and sexual abuse by family members and how he was exposed to guns, drugs, and alcohol use at an early age.” All of these factors would have been important mitigating evidence that would have worked to reduce his sentence to life imprisonment rather than capital punishment. In failing to present such evidence, Mr. Williams’ was again denied due process.
Finally, the trial prosecutor in Mr. Williams’ original trial removed six out of the seven potential Black jurors in the venire. Most strikingly, at the evidentiary hearing on the motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ execution in August of 2024, the trial prosecutor admitted under oath that he struck one of the jurors because, like Mr. Williams, he was Black.
On the day of Mr. Williams’ execution, Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project stated “[t]onight, Missouri will execute an innocent man." While the evidence pointing to Mr. Williams’ innocence was undoubtedly substantial, the very real issue rooted in the problem with Mr. Williams’ execution is one: the United States just executed a person without due process.
Regardless of innocence or guilt, our criminal legal system designated fundamental due process protections for someone accused of a crime. These protections rest on the monumental principle that the framers established in stating that “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Executing an individual without affording him his right to a fair trial effectively reduces the criminal legal system to an execution of governmental power without any checks and balances.
On September 24, 2024, Marcellus Williams was deprived of his life without due process of the law. He was tried and convicted in complete disregard for his constitutional rights, including the fundamental rights to confront witnesses and to an impartial jury. This event was tragic not only because Missouri executed a man whose guilt had been seriously called into question but also because Missouri executed a man whose trial was riddled with serious flaws.
The legitimacy of the death penalty has been called into question in recent years. There are a multitude of moral reasons why capital punishment is seen as both cruel and inhumane. However, regardless of moral attitudes towards this type of punishment, the death penalty cannot continue without the utmost protections of the law being exercised in every single case. The way the death penalty is procedurally being administered, with due process violations, is both cruel and unusual, and it cannot continue.
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