“A caring and loving father” are the words Marcellus Williams’ attorneys used to describe him.

On September 24, the life of this 55-year-old father was cut short due to failures in the court system and the ever-present racial injustice in the U.S. 

In 1998, a newspaper reporter named Felicia Gayle was stabbed 43 times and killed during a burglary of her home. That same year, Williams was arrested for unrelated charges. However, his then-girlfriend, Lara Asaro, approached authorities claiming that he had confessed to Gayle’s murder. Asaro also told police that she saw some of Gayle’s belongings in Williams’ car, which were later found in his car. In addition, an inmate named Henry Cole also claimed Williams confessed while they were in jail. 

Williams’ defense team argued that both Asaro and Cole were seeking out a considerable amount of money to testify, and that there was a possible chance of leniency in their own criminal cases. Both of their statements were inconsistent with each other, as well as the evidence of the crime scene. Williams’ attorneys also noted that other tangible evidence did not match Williams; the only connection Williams had with the case was the belongings seen by Asaro. 

Despite the abundance of evidence present at the crime scene including DNA, footprints, and fingerprints, the lack of a full implementation of DNA analysis technology in court cases at the time led to Williams’ full conviction of the murder in 2001 and his eventual place on death row. 

Around 2016, when DNA testing was possible and regularized in the criminal court system, the fingerprints and other DNA on the knife were analyzed. The results showed that none of the forensic evidence matched Williams’ DNA. While this should have been enough to, at the very least, allow his execution to be pushed to a later date, no clemency was granted to Williams. Missouri Governor Mike Parsons and the Missouri Supreme Court allowed the process for his execution to continue, resulting in his execution on September 24, 2024.

“Whether you’re for or against the death penalty, it shouldn’t have even gotten to that point if there was not enough evidence showing that he did it…there was enough reasonable doubt…there wasn’t enough evidence to say he was guilty,” said Forensics and Criminal Psychology teacher Colleen Magaña, a former member of law enforcement.

Williams should have been granted a reevaluation of his case given that the evidence presented cannot be used to fully corroborate a claim against him. If this indeed was a crime he did not commit, he should have been given the chance to fight for his freedom.  

Yet, regardless, this case of injustice is not an isolated one. Rather, it illustrates a repeated pattern of judicial injustice against black defendants that has rooted itself in the history of the U.S.

“A study in Washington State found that Black defendants are more than four times more likely to be sentenced to death than similarly situated non-Black defendants,” according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

This statistic can be attributed to the imbalance and bias present in the juries. In Marcellus Williams’s case, there were 11 white jurors and one black juror. The prosecutor on the case, Keith Larner, even testified to having excluded a potential juror because the juror was black, exacerbating the issue and allowing racial prejudice to impact the jury’s decision. 

“In the modern era, when executions have been carried out exclusively for murder, 75 percent of the cases involve the murder of white victims, even though about half of all homicide victims in America are black,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center.  

There is a clear bias towards murder cases where the victims are white, drawing a clear connection to cases like Williams’. Given that the jury was composed of almost all white jurors, Felicia Gayle was a white victim, and that black defendants often face higher execution rates, Marcellus Williams was faced with a trial that he, statistically, was not likely to win. 

“[The justice system] is absolutely trying to do better. They’ve recognized that there are disparities, that there’s some bias involved…but it’s not gone,” said Magaña.

Capital punishment is ultimately a practice that can be abused by those in power, such as Missouri Governor Mike Parsons and the judges of the Missouri Supreme Court. It can and has been used to target marginalized groups, enforce their biases, and to employ an excessive degree of power. This is seen through the fact that within the same week as Williams’, a total of 5 executions took place nationwide, a number unheard of in decades.

Before his death, Williams’ prosecutors and the victim’s family opposed the continuation of his execution after gaining knowledge of the evidence supporting his innocence. In addition, just a few days before, social media was flooded with public calls to stop the execution. Petitions were posted and protesters gathered outside various federal buildings in Missouri. 

As countless cases demonstrate, the consequences of the death penalty are irreversible. If the court system really did exercise true equality under the law, Williams would still be alive today and his conviction could have been overturned.