Missouri executes Marcellus Williams after Supreme Court rejects last delay bid
*Event date: 2024-09-24*
Missouri executed Marcellus Williams after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to delay the execution, closing a case that had remained under intense scrutiny because of disputed DNA evidence, failed efforts to overturn the conviction and longstanding claims that the state should not have carried out the sentence.
Williams was convicted in the 1998 stabbing death of Felicia Gayle and put to death by lethal injection after being pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. CT, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections. He had maintained his innocence throughout the case. The evidence packet says Williams’ son and two attorneys witnessed the execution, while no witnesses for Gayle’s family attended.
The execution came after the Missouri Supreme Court and Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied earlier efforts to halt it. Three Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said they would have granted the request to pause the execution. Williams’ lawyers had urged the high court to wait for a separate Oklahoma death penalty case they said raised similar questions about trial fairness.
The case had already been the subject of repeated legal review. Missouri courts had twice previously halted execution plans, first in 2015 for a DNA review and again in 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens called off a scheduled execution. Prosecutors later sought to vacate the conviction after new DNA results suggested the knife handle may have been contaminated, and the St. Louis prosecuting office conceded a constitutional error involving mishandled evidence. Still, a judge declined to throw out the conviction on Sept. 12 and the Missouri Supreme Court refused further relief.
The packet also records sharp criticism from Williams’ supporters. Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor who had sought to overturn the conviction, said the outcome did not serve justice. Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the execution of a man she described as innocent was a miscarriage of justice. Missouri corrections officials said the execution was intended to bring finality to a case that had languished for decades.
The dispute over the case centered on whether the forensic record was reliable enough to support a death sentence. According to the evidence, DNA experts for Williams argued that testing did not identify him as the source of DNA on the murder weapon, while later test results pointed to contamination by people involved in the case. The evidence packet does not resolve that factual fight, but it shows the legal system ultimately allowed the execution to proceed despite the objections.
