Here’s Why Missouri’s AG Keeps Blocking Innocent People From Freedom

DNA evidence has suggested for years that Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Felicia Gayle, and yet, the final weeks before the Sept. 24 execution date have been a series of twists and turns.  

That evidence was enough for Gayle’s family and Missouri’s former attorney general in 2017. This January, St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell’s office changed their minds about the 2000 murder conviction and petitioned to stop the execution. 

Williams, a now-54-year-old grandfather who goes by the name Khaliifah, has maintained his innocence since 1998. 

Yet, Attorney General Andrew Bailey has reportedly been relentless in his attempts to execute Williams. Throughout the weekend, arguments were filed before the Missouri Supreme Court appealing a circuit judge’s denied motion to vacate Williams’s 1998 murder conviction. On Monday, Williams’ attorneys argued that the trial prosecutor’s recent admission of dismissing Black jurors should be enough to overturn the conviction. The attorney general’s office denies those claims.

Hours after Monday’s hearing, the judges unanimously decided to uphold Williams’ conviction, allowing his execution to go forward despite a pending appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court. A clemency petition to the governor was denied before the day’s end.

Advocates also say the case underscores how justice plays out in the Midwest state. The way its government incarcerates, criminalizes, surveils, prosecutes, and uses the death penalty against Black and poor people — it is the South, said Michelle Smith, co-founder of the nonprofit Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. 

“Our roots are very much in that mindset of dehumanizing Black, poor, and brown people,” said Smith. “I think that Missouri is a place where … our government, courts, etc., have been very deeply ingrained with punishment, and retribution, and not actual justice,” Smith said.

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More than half of the 55 wrongful conviction cases in Missouri had Black exonerees; that includes three who were sentenced to death, according to the National Registry of Exonerations’ database that tracks wrongful convictions since 1989. Over the past 10 years, death penalty cases in the Show Me State have “declined dramatically” with “one unanimous jury decision” to sentence someone to death, according to the Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. 

Since last year, Bailey has made a concerted effort to obstruct exonerees’ release from prison, and in some cases, even advocated for their execution despite clear evidence of wrongful convictions. 

But Williams is used to this, say supporters like Smith, who reached out to Williams three years ago as part of her advocacy work.

This isn’t the first time the Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date for Williams. 

“He has been through this before — three times,” Smith said, referring to the first execution postponement granted in Aug. 2017 by then Gov. Eric Greitens. 

DNA evidence and jailhouse informant testimony are two contributing factors to prove a wrongful conviction occurred. Nationally, 848 people were wrongfully convicted in part because of a jailhouse informant and DNA test conducted post-conviction, according to the National Registry of Exonerations database. More than half of those exonerees are Black.

“What’s making it so difficult for them to let this guy prove his innocence? It doesn’t make sense to me,” Sabrina Smith, a death row exoneree from Mississippi and no relation to Michelle Smith, said in an interview with Capital B. 

“They know they don’t have any proof, but yet are still willing to kill someone. That’s the part that really pisses me off, to be honest, because the United States is in such a hurry to kill its own citizens, and that makes no sense.”

How can an innocent man still be executed?

Williams’ conviction was based on testimony from two witnesses — a jailhouse informant and an ex-girlfriend — who had separate, and unrelated, pending criminal charges, such that testifying for the prosecution would provide a benefit such as pocketing reward money.

In an Aug. 28 evidentiary hearing for Williams’ case, the trial prosecutor revealed that he mishandled the murder weapon, leaving his own DNA behind, and admitted dismissing Black people from the jury for ignorant reasons such as thinking Williams was related to a potential juror because they looked related. 

St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Bruce F. Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that he would not overturn Williams’ conviction for stabbing Gayle to death in 1998. 

Madeline Sieren, a spokeswoman for Bailey’s office, said they are standing by the conviction based on Hilton’s ruling. 

“Marcellus Williams was never found to be innocent. A judge just handed down a court ruling last week affirming his conviction,” Sieren wrote in an email to Capital B. 

In a unanimous written decision, Missouri Supreme Court Judge Zel M. Fischer agreed with Hilton. “There is no credible evidence of actual innocence or any showing of a constitutional error undermining confidence in the original judgment,” Fischer wrote.

Hilton’s ruling essentially disregarded DNA evidence tested in 2016 that proved Williams was not the source of DNA left on the murder weapon or the bloody footprints found inside Gayle’s St. Louis home. 

In 2017, Williams’ execution was put on hold as an advisory board established by Greitens was tasked with reinvestigating his case in light of newly discovered DNA evidence. In 2021, Missouri law changed to empower elected prosecutors to revisit past convictions when allegations of wrongdoing arise. 

Prior to this change, a 2016 legal doctrine set a standard in Missouri that only allowed exonerees on death row to be released, leaving individuals like Christopher Dunn, sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, to remain wrongfully incarcerated. After 34 years, Dunn was finally released in July.

In June 2023, Republican Gov. Mike Parson got rid of the advisory board before it could report its findings or provide a recommendation to the governor to grant Williams clemency. 

Bailey, a Republican appointed by Parson in 2023 and who is running for a full term this year, went on to set a second execution date.

“It’s all political,” Sabrina Smith, the former exoneree and a communications assistant for Witness to Innocence, said.

Earlier this year, Bell’s office joined the Midwest Innocence Project, which is representing Williams, to file a motion to dismiss his 24-year-old conviction. National civil rights organizations such as the NAACP have launched an online petition calling for Parson to step in.

“There are detailed and well-documented concerns regarding the integrity of Mr. Williams’ conviction,” Bell said in a Sept. 12 statement after Hilton’s decision. “The Gayle family has said that while they do wish for this case to be put to rest, they do not want to see the death penalty carried out against Mr. Williams.

“I continue to echo their sentiment. I, along with others who believe that the evidence in this case does not warrant execution, will continue to work to prevent that outcome.”

The execution is set for Tuesday at 6 p.m. local time.

“I am worried, but Khaliifah is not,” Michelle Smith said.

During his time in prison, Williams has become an imam, and mentor to other incarcerated people.

“He calls me sometimes to check in to see if I’m OK,” Michelle Smith said with a giggle about the Ferguson native. “That’s the type of person he is.” 

Before Williams was incarcerated, he was a father to Marcellus Williams Jr., who was still in elementary school when his father went to prison. Despite the challenges of parenting from behind bars, Williams has done his best to fulfill his responsibilities as a father to his son. Even though Marcellus Jr. grew up without his father’s physical presence, their shared faith strengthened their bond, allowing Marcellus Jr. to pass their name on to his son.

“And because he is a very faithful person — he is a very devout Muslim,” Michelle Smith said about the legal challenges Williams has faced while on death row with 11 other people. “His faith definitely has carried him through this all these years.”