Missouri executes man despite prosecutors, victim’s family saying he should be spared

Tuesday, Missouri executed Marcellus Williams over the objections of the local prosecutor and against the wishes of the murdered victim’s spouse. Earlier this year, the St. Louis County prosecutor filed a motion to overturn the conviction, citing a lack of credible evidence, ineffective trial counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection. William Brangham discussed more with Jonathan Potts.
Geoff Bennett:
Last night, the state of Missouri executed 55-year-old Marcellus Williams over the objections of the local prosecutor and against the wishes of the murdered victim’s spouse.
Williams was convicted of the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, who was stabbed more than 40 times in her home in suburban St. Louis.
As William Brangham explains, Williams maintained his innocence throughout decades of incarceration.
William Brangham:
Geoff, no physical evidence ever linked Marcellus Williams to that crime scene, and there was only one Black person the jury that convicted him.
Earlier this year, the St. Louis county prosecutor filed a motion to overturn the conviction, calling it a — quote — “manifest injustice.” It cited a lack of credible evidence, ineffective trial counsel, and racial discrimination in jury selection.
For more on this case, we are joined by Jonathan Potts. He was Marcellus Williams’ lead trial lawyer.
Jonathan, thank you so much for being here. I know this has got to be an awful day for you all.
And I wonder if you could just — how are you doing? How’s the defense team doing? How’s Mr. Williams’ family doing?
Jonathan Potts, Attorney For Marcellus Williams:
Thank you, William.
As you can imagine, everyone’s devastated right now. It’s been a very emotionally draining past 72 hours. There’s been a lot of effort and a lot of support to keep Mr. Williams alive, but, obviously, we failed last night.
And when that failure happens, you take it personally, and you take it hard.
William Brangham:
Do you believe in your heart of hearts that the state executed an innocent man yesterday?
Jonathan Potts:
Yes, of course I do. We don’t take these cases unless we believe in our clients, and that’s why we fought for him for years.
William Brangham:
I know that just on Monday you were even arguing his appeal in front of the state Supreme Court.
And one of the things you were arguing about was the DNA that was found on the murder weapon in this case. Can you tell us what was going on there?
Jonathan Potts:
Yes.
So, years ago, we found DNA on the murder weapon, which was a bloody kitchen knife, and that actually led one of the prior governors in Missouri to halt Mr. Williams’ execution back in 2017. It’s always been believed by us that DNA was going to belong to the true killer.
And as we were systematically excluding everyone, what we found out is that the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to the original trial prosecutor. At a hearing last month, the trial prosecutor admitted that he’d been handling the bloody kitchen knife without gloves five times before trial, contaminating the evidence.
William Brangham:
How do you make sense of all of this?
I mean, despite the objections of the current occupant of the prosecutor’s office, who didn’t want this to go forward, Ms. Gayle’s own family, this tainted DNA evidence that you’re describing, how do you explain that this execution still took place?
Jonathan Potts:
I think you have to look to leadership that’s not being responsive to the communities that they’re supposed to be serving.
Now, to be clear, as you said, the local prosecutor’s office recognized that this was not a fair trial. And they were the ones who filed the motion asking a court to throw out Mr. Williams’ conviction death sentence.
We were locked arm in arm. And what the family has said is they never wanted a death sentence in the first place. And yet here they were 20 years over and still having to deal with this. The victim didn’t believe in the death penalty. The victim’s husband didn’t want Mr. Williams to be executed;. And then the rest of her family didn’t want him to be executed.
It was state-level leaders who were pushing this through, despite the public’s concerns.
William Brangham:
The current governor of Missouri, Mike Parson, supported the state’s action, was encouraging that this execution go forward. He put out a statement yesterday.
I want to read you a part of it. He wrote: “Mr. Williams has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings, attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction. No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims.”
What do you say to the governor’s response there?
Jonathan Potts:
I say that he didn’t receive due process. And that’s exactly why the trial — that the prosecuting attorney’s office was trying to correct this.
There was an execution that was set just a few months ago and everyone was scrambling trying to stop this. And in a hearing that just occurred just a few weeks ago, we heard for the very first time from the original trial prosecutor from 20 years ago where he admitted that he had removed at least one Black juror from the jury because, in part, that person was Black.
Now, you can talk about 20 years of due process, but we didn’t hear about that until a month ago.
William Brangham:
I mean, every year — I mean, apart from this particular case, every year, on average, there’s — I think it’s four cases where someone who is on death row is found to innocent, is exonerated, and is set free.
I’m just curious what you think this case reveals about this broader system in our country to execute people, when the evidence really can be questioned.
Jonathan Potts:
I think that the important message that I hope people will take away from this is that the public knows that the justice system isn’t perfect.
All those exonerations that you’re talking about, the public sees that, and the public accepts it. What the public wants to hear is that, when the system makes a mistake, it is going to admit that mistake, it’s going to fix it, and it’s going to promise to be better.
That’s not what happened here. This is a typical scenario where there’s a fear about admitting that you are wrong because you think that it’s going to undermine public trust, but it’s really that resistance that’s undermining the public trust.
William Brangham:
All right, that is Jonathan Potts, the lawyer for Marcellus Williams.
Thank you so much for talking with us.
Jonathan Potts:
Thank you, William.