We need a moratorium on the death penalty

Missouri's execution of Marcellus Williams shows our system can't impose capital punishment justly.

Marcellus Williams (Photo Credit: The Innocence Project)

The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection on Tuesday. A few months ago, I mentioned Williams in my piece on criminal justice reform. I had hoped justice would prevail. Unfortunately, it did not. Missouri Governor Mike Parson could have pardoned him, he didn’t. The Missouri Supreme Court could have overturned his conviction, but set the ball in motion for his execution instead.

Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. Prosecutors believed new DNA evidence exonerated this man and attempted to vacate his conviction. Gayle’s family asked for clemency.

SCOTUSBlog summarized the problems with the case:

The only evidence linking Williams to the murder was a laptop stolen from Gayle’s husband. The Office of the Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County has conceded that there is evidence indicating that Williams was innocent: His DNA was not on the knife used to kill Gayle, while prosecutors had contaminated that evidence by handling it before and during the trial without gloves.

There was also evidence that prosecutors dismissed at least one juror based on race. The jury that convicted Williams, who was Black, was in the end made up of 11 white jurors and just one Black juror.

Parson’s office responded to the backlash.