Man who spent 20 years on death row executed despite evidence that could confirm his innocence – Cm ao Minuto

Marcellus Williams, a man who spent more than two decades on death row at a prison in Missouri, was executed on Tuesday after it was suggested that he was innocent. According to Reuters, the African-American man was killed by lethal injection shortly after 6:00 pm local time at a prison in Bonne Terre.

Despite his long-standing claim of innocence, Williams was found guilty in 2003 of murdering Felicia “Lisha” Gayle, a former newspaper reporter who was stabbed to death in her home. The man’s death came a day after Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and the Supreme Court rejected final attempts to prevent his execution.

According to Reuters, St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell, whose office handled the original prosecution, tried to block the execution due to questions about the original trial. “Even for those who disagree with the death penalty, when there is a shadow of a doubt about the guilt of any defendant, the irreversible punishment of execution should not be an option,” Bell said in a statement before the execution.

In court documents, the prosecutor questioned the reliability of the trial’s two key witnesses, said prosecutors improperly excluded black jurors based on race and noted that new tests found no trace of Williams’ DNA on the murder weapon. Later tests revealed DNA on the knife of a prosecutor and an investigator who worked on the case and handled the weapon without gloves.

The contamination of the knife prompted prosecutors and Williams’ attorneys to reach a plea agreement in August requiring him to plead no contest and receive a life sentence.

Williams’ attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project, noted in a statement before the execution that the victim’s family opposed Williams’ execution.

“This is not justice. And we should all question any system that allows this to happen,” Bushnell wrote. “The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with ‘finality’ over truth, justice and humanity at any cost,” he wrote.