NAACP president urges Missouri governor to halt execution planned for next week
The president of the NAACP is urging Missouri's governor to halt the execution of Marcellus Williams scheduled for Tuesday, writing that executing a Black man who says he was wrongfully convicted would amount to a “horrible miscarriage of justice.”
Executing a Black man in Missouri who says he was wrongfully convicted would amount to a “horrible miscarriage of justice,” the president of the NAACP said in a letter Wednesday calling on the governor to halt the execution planned for next week.
Prosecutors want to vacate the conviction of Marcellus Williams over doubts about evidence in the case, NAACP President Derrick Johnson pointed out in the letter obtained by The Associated Press. Relatives of the woman who was killed also oppose the execution.
Several efforts are underway to spare Williams' life. Attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project on Wednesday filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay. They’ve also asked a federal court and the Missouri Supreme Court to intervene, and asked Gov. Mike Parson to grant clemency.
None of the physical evidence has linked Williams to the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle, according to a statement from the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office included in Johnson's letter. Executing Williams would perpetuate a history of racial injustice in the use of the death penalty in Missouri and elsewhere, Johnson wrote. The NAACP is opposed to the death penalty.
