A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for breaking into a woman's home and killing her.
A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for breaking into a woman’s home and killing her, despite calls by her family and the prosecutor’s office that put him on death row to let him serve out the rest of his life in prison.
Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole. Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.
Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it. Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.
Marcellus Williams Execution Death Penalty Lisha Gayle Clemency Jury Selection DNA Evidence
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