Missouri Governor Silent on Marcellus Williams’ Case 5 Years After Execution Halted for Board of Inquiry Innocence Review

Five years after for­mer Gov. Eric Greitens issued an exe­cu­tion-day reprieve for a Board of Inquiry to address ques­tions of inno­cence, Marcellus Williams remains on Missouri​’s death row. Though the board pre­sent­ed its rec­om­men­da­tions more than a year ago, cur­rent Gov. Mike Parson has tak­en no action on the case. 

Williams was set to be exe­cut­ed on August 22, 2017. Mounting evi­dence of his inno­cence pro­duced a groundswell in oppo­si­tion to his exe­cu­tion and calls for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the case. Hours before the exe­cu­tion, Greitens grant­ed Williams a stay and con­vened a board of inquiry to review new DNA evi­dence and ​“any oth­er rel­e­vant evi­dence not avail­able to the jury.” At the time, Greitens explained that ​“To car­ry out the death penal­ty, the peo­ple of Missouri must have con­fi­dence in the judg­ment of guilt.” Greitens lat­er resigned from office after a scan­dal, and Lieutenant Governor Mike Parson replaced him and was lat­er elect­ed to the office.

Board of Inquiry mem­bers said that they had met quar­ter­ly until July 2021 when they made oral rec­om­men­da­tions to the gov­er­nor. The governor’s office has refused to com­ment on the case, cit­ing state statutes that clas­si­fy the infor­ma­tion reviewed by the board confidential. 

Advocates have called the governor’s silence ​“a polit­i­cal stand.” Parson ​“want[s] to come off as some­one who is tough on crime, and who is going to make sure that peo­ple con­vict­ed get their pun­ish­ment,” Michelle Smith, direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ty out­reach and advo­ca­cy for Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told St. Louis Public Radio. But ​“when an error or a mis­take comes to light,” she said, ​“it is also part of [elect­ed offi­cials’] job with­in jus­tice to make sure that there aren’t inno­cent peo­ple sit­ting in prison.”

Parson’s fail­ure to act has renewed crit­i­cisms that he and oth­er statewide offi­cials have repeat­ed­ly obstruct­ed the release of inno­cent African Americans who have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der. In June 2021, Parson took no action on the par­don appli­ca­tion of Kevin Strickland, who spent 42 years in prison wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der, say­ing his appli­ca­tion was not ​“a pri­or­i­ty.” Two months lat­er, he par­doned Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who had pled guilty to mis­de­meanor harass­ment and assault charges after point­ing an auto­mat­ic rifle and a hand­gun at peace­ful Black Lives Matter demon­stra­tors in June 2020. 

In 2001, the Missouri Attorney General’s office told the Missouri Supreme Court that Joseph Amrine should be exe­cut­ed, even if the court found him to be actu­al­ly inno­cent. Both Strickland and Amrine were later exonerated. 

Lamar Johnson remains impris­oned 26 years after he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der in St. Louis, despite agree­ment by city pros­e­cu­tors that he is innocent.

Williams was sen­tenced to death for the 1998 mur­der of a for­mer St. Louis Dispatch reporter. No phys­i­cal evi­dence links Williams to the mur­der, and nei­ther foot­prints from the mur­der scene nor DNA from the victim’s cloth­ing and under her fin­ger­nails match Williams. In the lead up to his 2017 exe­cu­tion date, his lawyers pre­sent­ed Missouri’s state and fed­er­al courts with the results of new DNA test­ing of the knife used in the killing, which a defense expert said exclud­ed Williams and impli­cat­ed an unknown man as the killer. The courts denied Williams an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on the new evi­dence and declined to stay his exe­cu­tion. His lawyers’ motions to stay his exe­cu­tion were pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court when Greitens issued the stay.