Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced the state will move forward with plans to execute Marcellus Williams at 6 pm local time on Tuesday despite controversy over evidence and racial discrimination in the trial that led to his 2001 capital conviction.
Who is Marcellus Williams?
The jury that convicted Williams of capital murder knew little about the challenges he faced growing up, and the tolls these challenges took on his mental health. Following the conviction, Williams was interviewed by clinical psychologist Donald Cross, who revealed the following details, as described in court documents.
Williams grew up in a violent and impoverished household. He faced physical, sexual, and verbal abuse by multiple authority figures — ranging from his mother to local church officials. From his earliest childhood, he was surrounded by drug abuse and petty crime. Due to cognitive impairments, he struggled in school, resulting in many failed classes and absences. He left school after achieving a 1.1 GPA in tenth grade. In the meantime, he began to struggle with suicidal ideation, and turned to drugs as a coping mechanism. Ultimately, he descended into a life of petty crime, stealing to support his drug habit.
Cross concluded that Williams suffered from multiple mental illnesses as a result of his upbringing, including depression, drug dependence, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
On what basis was he sentenced to death?
In 1998, journalist Felicia Gayle Picus was murdered in her home in a gated community in a suburb of St. Louis. The perpetrator committed the murder with a kitchen knife taken from Picus’ home before robbing the house and fleeing the scene.
When authorities arrived at the scene, they found ample physical evidence, including fingerprints, hair samples, bloody footprints, and the murder weapon. Still, police struggled to identify a suspect.
In May 1999, the Picus family offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the perpetrator’s arrest and conviction. At that point, two witnesses blamed Williams for the murder. This witness testimony proved instrumental as none of the physical evidence at the scene could be tied to Williams. He was convicted of capital murder in 2001.
Why is Williams’ case so controversial?
Williams’ case has been challenged on multiple bases, including serious problems with the physical evidence — particularly in light of subsequent advances of DNA testing technology, issues with the reliability of the witnesses who testified against Williams, and issues of racial discrimination. We will unpack each of these issues in greater detail below.
These factors, particularly when viewed through the lens of the due process clause of the US Constitution, have spurred many to call for clemency in Williams’ case. His advocates have even included local prosecutors. In January of this year, Prosecuting Attorney of the County of St. Louis Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Williams’ sentence, arguing that in addition to procedural and investigative issues, Williams’ trial had been marred by constitutional errors. Summarizing Bell’s key findings, the motion states:
Based on a review of the evidence and additional investigation, the Prosecuting Attorney has concluded that: (1) new evidence suggests that Mr. Williams is actually innocent; (2) Mr. Williams’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present evidence to impeach Henry Cole and Laura Asaro; 3) Mr. Williams’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase; and (4) The prosecution improperly removed qualified jurors for racial reasons during jury selection…
Why is the physical evidence so controversial, and what impact has DNA testing had?
In his motion to vacate, Bell highlighted several key issues with the investigation, which he described as “so deficient it violated due process.” He wrote that none of the physical evidence at the scene could be connected to Williams. Footprints, fingerprints, and hair samples were ruled out as matches early on, and as DNA testing has evolved, three separate experts “have reviewed the DNA testing performed on the knife and each has independently concluded that Mr. Williams is excluded as the source of the male DNA on the handle of the murder weapon.”
Among Williams’ most vocal advocates is the Innocence Project, an advocacy group that since 1992 has used DNA evidence to exonerate hundreds of wrongfully convicted death row inmates and advocate for criminal justice reform. The Innocence Project has said of the physical evidence issue: “There is no reliable evidence proving that Marcellus Williams committed the crime for which he is scheduled to be executed on Sep. 24. The State destroyed or corrupted the evidence that could conclusively prove his innocence and the available DNA and other forensic crime-scene evidence does not match him.”
Contributing to the controversy, Picus’ family publicly opposed Williams’ execution in light of evidence that DNA evidence related to the case was corrupted, according to the Innocence Project.
In a social media post on Monday, Bell again urged Missouri to call off the execution, citing evidentiary issues. He wrote: “Tomorrow, the state of Missouri is slated to execute Marcellus Williams. There are too many questions about the evidence in this case. It would be a grave mistake to proceed with his execution without fully addressing these concerns.”
Why is the reliability of the witnesses being called into question?
According to advocates for Williams, the witnesses whose testimony led to his conviction were unreliable and improperly motivated to testify against him.
The witnesses at issue were Henry Cole, at the time an inmate in a local jail who had previously shared a cell with Williams in an unrelated criminal matter. The other was Laura Asaro, a former romantic partner of Williams. Both witnesses had lengthy criminal records of their own, according to court documents.
As described by the Innocence Project:
Both of these individuals were known fabricators; neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. Their statements were inconsistent with their own prior statements, with each other’s accounts, and with the crime scene evidence, and none of the information they provided could be independently verified.
Bell also focused on witness credibility in his motion to vacate, asserting that Cole was motivated by the financial reward to act, and that Asaro was given an ultimatum to testify against Williams or face new criminal charges. He provided details of multiple changes to the accounts of both Cole and Asaro throughout the criminal proceedings.
How does racial discrimination factor into the case?
Race has featured prominently in advocacy efforts in this case, both in terms of providing context for Williams’ conviction despite the shortcomings described above, and in specific reference to the composition of the jury that condemned him to death.
Last week, leading US civil rights organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) urged Missouri authorities to call off the execution. In an open letter, the organization referred to the state’s record of at least 60 lynchings of Black Missourians during the 19th and 20th centuries. The organization also cited findings that Missouri has disproportionately applied the death penalty to Black men, particularly in cases involving White female victims.
Killing Mr. Williams, a Black man who was wrongfully convicted of killing a White woman, would amount to a horrible miscarriage of justice and a perpetuation of the worst of Missouri’s past. … Put simply, Mr. Williams did not commit the murder for which he was convicted. The prosecutor knows it, and the citizens of Missouri know it
With regard to the jury that convicted Williams in 2001, Bell wrote in his motion to vacate that records indicate the prosecutors running the case against Williams “had an apparent pattern and practice of unconstitutionally excluding Black potential jurors,” and that “in keeping with this pattern and practice, the state excluded two qualified Black jurors on the basis of their race.”
What other issues have advocates raised?
In his motion to vacate, Bell raised numerous issues with Williams’ initial defense, including his attorneys’ failure to introduce mitigating evidence such as his history of abuse and mental health struggles.
How has Missouri’s governor defended his decision to move forward with the execution as planned despite the growing controversy?
In announcing Tuesday that the execution would be carried out as planned, Parson stated that Williams “has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue” and that no court has found merit in his claims of innocence. Parson said in a statement:
Capital punishment cases are some of the hardest issues we have to address in the Governor’s Office, but when it comes down to it, I follow the law and trust the integrity of our judicial system.
In dismissing calls for a pardon, Parson cited Williams’ “robust criminal history” and the same witness testimony that featured in Bell’s motion to vacate and the Innocence Project’s advocacy materials.
Following Parson’s statement, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones penned an open letter to the governor urging him to reconsider. She wrote:
Without your intervention, Marcellus Williams will be executed under your jurisdiction. … The potential to take an innocent life does not align with the values I know you to have. Even if you believe that Marcellus Williams is guilty, the ramifications of dismissing doubts and permitting his execution are irreparable. …You alone have the power to preserve his life.
Advocates for Williams continue to fight. The Legal Defense Fund, an organization devoted to fighting for racial justice, filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court on Tuesday, urging the high court to intervene in light of evidence of Williams’ innocence and racial discrimination and other failures in the legal proceedings that led to his conviction.
The execution is scheduled for 6 pm Central Time on Tuesday, barring a last-minute legal intervention.
