UPDATE (9/23/24): The Missouri Supreme Court has denied William's motion for relief, and Governor Parson has denied clemency. A petition to halt the execution has been filed with the US Supreme Court.

BREAKING NEWS (9/12/24): In Missouri, a judge has just declined to vacate the conviction and death sentence of Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams, despite the state's concession that the evidence in his case was improperly destroyed. Just weeks ago, attorneys for Williams and the government submitted a compromise agreement that was approved by the judge, allowing him to maintain his claim of innocence even as he entered a plea of "No Contest" and agreed to accept a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. HOWEVER, the Missouri Attorney General appealed the ruling and won, prompting a new hearing, and now we have the result....

Marcellus Williams is scheduled to be executed in Missouri on September 24, 2024 for the alleged 1988 murder of Felicia Gayle, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter in St. Louis, who was stabbed to death in her home. In June, 2023, Gov. Mike Parson lifted Marcellus' stay of execution, which had been issued by former Gov. Eric Greitens minutes before Marcellus' 2017 scheduled execution.  

Marcellus' entire conviction rested on inconsistent testimonies from two individuals who were incentivized to testify against him. Recent testing of evidence from the crime scene entirely excluded Marcellus, thereby wholly contradicting the testimony used to secure his conviction, yet he is still imminently at risk of execution in Missouri.

Main concerns with Marcellus' case (From the Innocence Project):

• Marcellus has been excluded as the source of DNA evidence found on the murder weapon.
• No court has reviewed the exculpatory DNA evidence.
• The prosecution's case against Marcellus was entirely based on unreliable testimony from 2 incentivized witnesses.
• No scientific or eyewitness evidence connects Marcellus to the crime.
• Former Gov. Greitens stayed Marcellus' 2017 execution based on powerful DNA evidence.

To read more about Marcellus' case, please visit & sign the Innocence Project and Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty page as well.

Missouri makes itself an outlier in its use of the death penalty. In fact, since the pandemic began, Missouri has been one of only a handful of states that has carried out an execution since 2020.

The majority of other states are on a downward trend of executions, and increasingly, states are abolishing the practice altogether, including the southern state of Virginia, which repealed its death penalty law in 2021.

Please sign the petition asking Governor Mike Parson to do everything within his power to prevent an execution from occurring, including reissuing a stay for Marcellus, and seeking a path to clemency in the case.