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By Matthew Impelli
Life & Trends Reporter
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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is encouraging Missouri to halt the planned execution of death row inmate Marcellus Williams.
On Wednesday, the NAACP sent a letter to Missouri Governor Mike Parson saying that Williams was wrongfully convicted and that following through on the execution would be a "horrible miscarriage of justice."
In the letter, which was obtained by the Associated Press, NAACP President Derrick Johnson cited doubts about evidence in the case held by prosecutors.
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Earlier on Wednesday, Williams agreed to a no-contest plea, opting for a life sentence without parole and dropping his claim of innocence. The plea deal comes after nearly two decades of legal battles over his 1998 conviction for the brutal murder of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and a former journalist in suburban St. Louis.
Prosecutors at Williams' trial said he broke into Gayle's home on August 11, 1998, and found a large butcher knife and stabbed her 43 times. Her purse and her husband's laptop were also stolen.
Multiple efforts are underway to save Williams' life. On Wednesday, attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution. They also petitioned a federal court and the Missouri Supreme Court to intervene while urging Governor Parson to grant clemency.
According to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, none of the physical evidence ties Williams to the 1998 stabbing of Gayle. In a letter, Johnson argued that executing Williams would continue a legacy of racial injustice in Missouri's application of the death penalty and beyond. The NAACP has voiced its opposition to the death penalty.
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"Taking the life of Marcellus Williams would be an unequivocal statement that when a white woman is killed, a Black man must die. And any Black man will do," Johnson wrote in the letter.
Williams, 55, is set to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday despite maintaining his innocence—an argument that was compelling enough for Missouri's previous governor to grant a last-minute reprieve in 2017. The current St. Louis County prosecutor has also called for Williams' murder conviction and death sentence to be overturned.
Williams was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001. Keith Larner, the prosecutor in the case, testified at a hearing last month that the jury selection was fair despite the fact that only one Black juror served on the panel.
This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.
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