Marcellus Williams, 55, who spent more than two decades on Missouri’s death row convicted of a 1998 murder that he said he did not commit, was killed by lethal injection Tuesday evening after a lengthy and complex effort to exonerate him based on DNA testing issues (article available here).
After two last-minute execution reprieves starting almost a decade ago, momentum to reexamine Williams’s decades-old conviction gathered from unlikely sources, including the local prosecutor from the office that convicted him. Williams received an outpouring of support from legal groups such as the Midwest Innocence Project and a member of Congress. The family of the victim also came to oppose Williams’s execution.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay Williams’s execution. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed and said they would have granted the request to halt the execution.
Williams’ son and two attorneys were present for the execution. No one was present on behalf of the victim’s family.