The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for Marcellus Williams, a Missouri inmate scheduled to be executed on Tuesday evening. Williams, 53, was convicted of the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter.
On Monday, Williams’ attorneys filed two requests for a stay of execution. The first stemmed from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to consider newly discovered evidence of racial bias in the jury selection, a claim rejected by the court on Saturday. The second request cited concerns from the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office, which raised doubts about Williams’ guilt and filed a motion to vacate his conviction.
#MarcellusWilliams is subject to be executed at 6PM central time, for the rest of us just shy of 2.5 hours from now.
People are delivering hundreds of thousands of signatures to @GovParsonMO to change his mind (tik tok @ Joemcleantv)
Please sign online:https://t.co/OLLG07KPZI https://t.co/S7kr0nE6AN pic.twitter.com/KCKBICBOO2
— ᵘ𝔫Ĵ𝐚Đ𝐄Ⓓ (@Noir_is_black) September 24, 2024
Although a trial judge initially granted the motion, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey contested the ruling, leading the judge to reverse his decision. Both Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the state’s Supreme Court declined to grant clemency on Monday.
The requests were reviewed by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who denied them on Tuesday around 6 p.m. ET. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the second request.
Williams’ execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT.