FULLERTON, California. Titan YDSA fully opposes and is enraged by the State of Missouri’s execution of Marcellus Williams, an innocent Black man put to death amidst ongoing appeals regarding the actions of the prosecutor in his case.
Marcellus Williams was falsely accused of murdering Felicia Gayle Picus during a burglary in University City, Missouri in 1998. The DNA evidence available at the scene did not match him, and the lead prosecutor admitted to racial bias in jury selection. Even now, the office of the St. Louis County Prosecutor has filed court motions to entirely vacate his conviction; Felicia Picus’ family has also opposed the execution.
Despite this, Missouri continued to execute yet another innocent Black man, ending his life based on an admitted false, racist, and malicious prosecution. The state government and the Missouri Supreme Court have done everything in their power to expedite this prosecution, removing all due process boundaries they are able to; there are also still pending state and federal court cases regarding the execution, and yet Missouri continued with it anyways.
Today, we must also call for outrage against Missouri Governor Mike Parson, who continued to defame and lie about Williams’ past when reviewing his petition for clemency. This came as over a million citizens from across Missouri and the United States signed a petition to the Governor to stop his execution. In June 2023, Parson decided to dissolve the entire panel of judges reviewing his case without even receiving their report, allowing the execution to expeditiously continue; Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who has a history of bigoted and anti-Black actions, then moved to solidify the date of his execution.
Bailey also took active actions to ensure that he would be executed before due process could be exercised. With the St. Louis prosecutors’ motion to vacate still being under consideration, they offered him a new Alford plea bargain – not admitting guilt – to commute his death sentence to life in prison without parole, sparing his life. This would have stopped the execution, but Bailey instead filed a motion to block the plea deal, which was then sustained by the Missouri Supreme Court.
This is state-sponsored murder, and the perpetrators are the Missouri state government. There’s nothing else to it. This is murder.
Titan YDSA Steering Committee