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[emzen]

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/6843

https://twitter.com/helenprejean/status/897914814953074688

Williams had filed a motion in the state court to stay his scheduled August 22 execution, along with a petition seeking the appointment of a Special Master to hold hearings on his innocence claim. His petition was supported by reports from two DNA experts who had determined that DNA evidence on the knife did not match Williams or Gayle, but came from an unknown third person. One expert concluded that Williams "could not have contributed to the detected [DNA] profile" and the other found "a clear exclusion of Marcellus Williams from the knife handle." The petition alleged that the "physical evidence collected from the crime scene??which included fingernail scrapings from the victim, who had been stabbed more than 40 times??did not match and could not be linked to" Williams.

In earlier federal habeas corpus proceedings, the district court had overturned Williams?s death sentence, finding that his trial lawyer had failed to investigate and present significant mitigating evidence relating to Williams?s history of mental deficiencies and chronic abuse throughout his childhood. That decision, however, was reversed by the Eighth Circuit in a split 2-1 decision. Williams had also previously raised a claim alleging that St. Louis County prosecutors had a pattern and practice of striking black prospective jurors, including 6 of the 7 African Americans it had the opportunity to empanel in his case.

Again: fuck this country.

[Eternal Bell]

this is murder
cold bloody damns murder