By David French
Opinion Columnist

On June 4, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September execution date for a man
named Marcellus Williams. There’s a profound problem with this ruling, however.
Williams is most likely innocent of the charges against him.

The story — like every story about capital punishment — begins with tragedy and
evil. On Aug. 11, 1998, a 42-year-old former Saint Louis Post-Dispatch reporter
named Felicia Anne Gayle was found stabbed to death in her home. The murder was
brutal. She’d been stabbed 43 times; her husband found her with the knife still
in her neck.

The crime generated a significant amount of local news coverage. Gayle’s husband
was a radiologist, and the murder happened in a quiet gated community. Despite
the media coverage and the intense interest in the case, the murder went
unsolved for 15 months, until the police charged Williams with the crime.

At first glance, the charges seemed to make sense. Williams is not a sympathetic
defendant. He has previous convictions for burglary and armed robbery, and his
girlfriend, Laura Asaro, accused him of the crime, along with a jailhouse
informant named Henry Cole.

Their story was compelling — and dreadful. Cole claimed that he had been locked
up with Williams in the City Workhouse, where Williams was detained for an
unrelated crime. Cole said Williams told him that he went to the house with the
intention of burglarizing it. When he arrived, he knocked (perhaps to discern
whether anyone was home), and when no one answered, broke a windowpane on the
door to enter the house. When he got inside he heard water running, realized
someone was there, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and waited for the person to
emerge.

When Gayle came downstairs, he stabbed her to death and then took her purse,
another bag containing a laptop computer and a number of other items. Later, he
picked up his girlfriend in his grandfather’s car, which Williams was allowed to
drive. Asaro testified that he was wearing a jacket, even though it was a hot
summer day, and that she saw scratches on his neck. He first said that he’d been
in a fight, but Asaro testified that the next day he confessed to the murder.

To corroborate her story, the state also introduced evidence that it found a
ruler and a calculator belonging to Gayle in the grandfather’s car, and it
introduced evidence that Williams sold the computer after the murder to a man
named Glenn Roberts. During the penalty phase of the trial, the state also
introduced evidence of Williams’s extensive criminal history, which included 16
different convictions, including armed robbery and threatening to kill a
corrections officer.

That evidence certainly seems damning, and when it’s recounted in a court
opinion — like the Eighth Circuit opinion rejecting Williams’s request for
post-conviction relief — it can seem airtight.

But there’s a problem. None of the physical evidence from the crime scene
supports this story.

The crime scene itself was horrific, and it included a large amount of physical
evidence. There were bloody footprints in the house, but they did not match
Williams’s shoes. There were bloody fingerprints, but they weren’t a match for
Williams, either. Neither was the DNA found under Gayle’s fingernails, and
neither were the hair samples found at the scene.

And what of the testimony that Williams sold a laptop belonging to the victim’s
family? The trial court excluded testimony that Williams told Roberts that his
girlfriend had given him the laptop to sell. Indeed, as the prosecutor’s office
later asserted, this evidence made “the person with the most direct connection
to the crime Laura Asaro and not Marcellus Williams.”

In addition, Cole and Asaro were deeply problematic witnesses. As the
prosecutor’s office observes, Cole has a “lengthy criminal history,” and he has
“long struggled with drug addiction — he regularly used crack cocaine, marijuana
and heroin — and with mental illness; he had received psychiatric treatment and
had been prescribed ‘psych medicine,’ which caused hallucinations and memory
loss.” Asaro also had a considerable criminal history, and she agreed to testify
only after the police told her she could be charged with withholding evidence if
she didn’t cooperate.

Their stories also evolved over the course of the case and were inconsistent
with the physical evidence. For example, Asaro said Williams went through the
back door, but the broken window aligned with the deadbolt on the front door.
Asaro said Williams rinsed the knife, but it was in fact left in Gayle’s body.
Cole in particular was keenly interested in a $10,000 reward Gayle’s family
posted for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

There were also concerns with the jury. Gayle is white, and Williams is Black;
the prosecutor used six of his nine peremptory challenges (which permit
prosecutors to strike prospective jurors without providing a justification) to
exclude six of the seven Black prospective jurors. As a result, Williams faced a
jury composed of one Black and 11 white members, a potential violation of
binding Supreme Court precedent prohibiting prosecutors from engaging in racial
discrimination in jury selection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/opinion/death-penalty-missouri-williams.html

Hartung doesn't care if an innocent man is executed. Hartung models himself
after Inspector Javert. He doesn't care about justice in the least.

> As a result, Williams faced a jury composed of one Black and 11 white
> members, a potential violation of binding Supreme Court precedent
> prohibiting prosecutors from engaging in racial discrimination in jury
> selection.
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/opinion/death-penalty-missouri-williams.html
>
> Hartung doesn't care if an innocent man is executed. Hartung models
> himself after Inspector Javert. He doesn't care about justice in the least.

As death is annihilation, the forever destruction of a conscious mind,
executions just create more victims. To lie strapped to a gurney,
knowing that one is truly innocent of the crime for which one is being
put to death while facing the certain outcome of endless nothingness,
has to be one of the worst states of being.

Dawn

On 21 Jun 2024, J Carlson <j_carlson@gmx.com> posted some
news:v54jf9$38mfs$21@dont-email.me:

> By David French
> Opinion Columnist
>
>
> On June 4, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September execution date
> for a man named Marcellus Williams. There’s a profound problem with
> this ruling, however. Williams is most likely innocent of the charges
> against him.

He's black, from St Louis - he's guilty of something. Probably leered at
white women or pissed on the sidewalk while drunk. Stick the needle in
his ass and get it over with.

https://innocenceproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/72-2018-09-07-
Williams-Marcellus-051-jpg.webp

On 21 Jun 2024, Dawn Flood <Dawn.Belle.Flood@gmail.com> posted some
news:v550vp$3chet$2@dont-email.me:

>
>> As a result, Williams faced a jury composed of one Black and 11 white
>> members, a potential violation of binding Supreme Court precedent
>> prohibiting prosecutors from engaging in racial discrimination in
>> jury selection.
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/opinion/death-penalty-missouri-will
>> iams.html
>>
>> Hartung doesn't care if an innocent man is executed. Hartung models
>> himself after Inspector Javert. He doesn't care about justice in the
>> least.
>
> As death is annihilation, the forever destruction of a conscious mind,
> executions just create more victims. To lie strapped to a gurney,
> knowing that one is truly innocent of the crime for which one is being
> put to death while facing the certain outcome of endless nothingness,
> has to be one of the worst states of being.

He's black and guilty. And if he's not, let him pay for the sins of those
blacks who have been turned loose by Soros supported DAs.

All sympathy for blacks is now gone because of what they have done to the
retail business climate. If Americans had any guts at all, they round
these black bastards up and hang 100 a night until the flash mob shit
stops.

If they have to kill them all in the process, so be it.

On 6/21/2024 6:18 PM, Rudney McFly wrote:
> On 21 Jun 2024, Dawn Flood <Dawn.Belle.Flood@gmail.com> posted some
> news:v550vp$3chet$2@dont-email.me:
>
>>
>>> As a result, Williams faced a jury composed of one Black and 11 white
>>> members, a potential violation of binding Supreme Court precedent
>>> prohibiting prosecutors from engaging in racial discrimination in
>>> jury selection.
>>>
>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/opinion/death-penalty-missouri-will
>>> iams.html
>>>
>>> Hartung doesn't care if an innocent man is executed. Hartung models
>>> himself after Inspector Javert. He doesn't care about justice in the
>>> least.
>>
>> As death is annihilation, the forever destruction of a conscious mind,
>> executions just create more victims. To lie strapped to a gurney,
>> knowing that one is truly innocent of the crime for which one is being
>> put to death while facing the certain outcome of endless nothingness,
>> has to be one of the worst states of being.
>
> He's black and guilty. And if he's not, let him pay for the sins of those
> blacks who have been turned loose by Soros supported DAs.
>
> All sympathy for blacks is now gone because of what they have done to the
> retail business climate. If Americans had any guts at all, they round
> these black bastards up and hang 100 a night until the flash mob shit
> stops.
>
> If they have to kill them all in the process, so be it.
>

You need therapy, lots of it! Maybe converting to a different religion
may help, also.

Dawn