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Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

innocenceproject.org

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Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#351

Post by amatecha »

knodi123 wrote: post #138
pcthrowaway wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a $10,000 reward for information which easily could have incentivized them to provide false testimony

According to the governor, > The girlfriend never requested the reward for information about Ms. Gayle’s murder, despite claims that she was only interested in money.

except..

> The woman at first denied having information about the crime, prosecutors’ motion states. But after meeting with police several times – and being promised charges she was facing would be dropped and told she would be eligible for the reward – Asaro eventually cooperated, telling police she had indeed seen Williams on the afternoon of the murder, the motion states.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/21/us/marcellus-williams-missour...

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#352

Post by awb »

JohnBooty wrote: post #300
awb wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc. It's possible that some on…

Friend, this is completely the wrong math on so many levels! I don't even know where to start... these numbers are not even remotely representative of anything about the larger prison population. The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. [...] Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is representative for this pop…

Sure, it’s a ballpark, but in the context of a conversation about how many innocent people are being executed, I think the wrongful conviction rate of the entire prison population is less relevant than a ballpark rate of those wrongfully sentenced to life/death. For example, if the wrongful conviction rate for minor offenses or white collar crimes was as high as 10%, it wouldn’t necessarily indicate that 10% of people sentenced to death were also wrongfully convicted. Its very possible that juries dealing with more serious crimes and more serious punishments are more careful in their decisions or innately require a higher burden of proof to convict.

I assumed that most of the letters received by the IP are for life/death sentences or at least major crimes with multi-decade long sentences, which I think would probably have a more consistent wrongful conviction rate in the group vs. the entire prison population.

And while you’re right that the IP might only have the resources to attempt to overturn the top X% cases, one could assume that they don’t win all their cases and that the next tier of cases they don’t accept would have diminishing returns.

So I think it’s fair to treat this estimate as closer to a lower bound with some significant error bars, but I’d be surprised if the reality is 5x or 10x higher.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#353

Post by amatecha »

jmyeet wrote: post #32

If you're wondering if the Missouri governor Mike Parson sparingly uses his clemency and pardon power, you'd be mistaken [1]: > Parson, a former sheriff, has now granted clemency to more than 760 people since 2020 — more than any Missouri governor since the 1940s including those who waved guns at BLM protestors [2] and the son of the KC Chiefs coach who caused grave bodiy injuries to someone in a DUI. Available data…

> Parson, a former sheriff, has never granted clemency in a death penalty case.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/missouri-governor-st...

> Parson, a former sheriff, has been in office for 11 executions, and has never granted clemency.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/parson-state-supreme-co...

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#354

Post by awb »

atoav wrote: post #339
harshreality wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are 1000 different ways to get both a ruler and a laptop that belonged to the same murder victim.

[1] Ruler is in the folded laptop, laptop gets stolen, laptop is sold, ruler inside, buyer is told he can keep the cool ruler. [2] Murderer specifically tries to pin the murder on someone else. Someone else being prosecuted is a good way to live free after, gifts his laptop and a ruler to the suspect or leaves them somewhere where they are discovered and taken. Is that unlikely? Is it more unlikely than a murderer ke…

Fair, but the Innocence Project did not argue that the defendant received inadequate representation. So presumably the defense would have had to offer an explanation during the trial and the jury was apparently unconvinced.

Juries can get things wrong, but we’re also just getting the cliff notes of the trial rather than the whole story.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#355

Post by concordDance »

JeremyNT wrote: post #88
knodi123 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of evidence. He confessed to his girlfriend, and a cellmate. He pawned the victim's possessions. He was seen disposing of bloody clothes. He already had 15 felony convictions in addition to offenses related to Ms. Gayle's murder: robbery (2), armed criminal action (2), assault (2), burglary (4), stealing (3), stealing a motor vehicle, and unlawful use of a weapon. Now, as to whether this evidence is so…

> There's plenty of evidence. He confessed to his girlfriend, and a cellmate. Be careful, this is hearsay and not evidence. Those people claim that he confessed to them, but there is a lot more context. Here is what the linked story says about the "he confessed" part: > The investigation had gone cold until a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him that he…

> Be careful, this is hearsay and not evidence.

Note that it's possible the person you are replying to was using the everyday "observation increases relative likelihood of theory" definition of evidence rather than the legal one.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#356

Post by TZubiri »

twojacobtwo wrote: post #194
TZubiri wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Be careful, this is hearsay and not evidence. I think you are out of your element. To my understanding hearsay refers to a claim made by someone not in court. In this case the girlfriend and jailmate were called as witnesses and gave testimony in court. Witnesses are evidence and they are one of the oldest forms of evidence, your view that evidence is only material is a gross misunderstanding of trial procedures.

Here's a more thorough definition: > Evidence that is not within the personal knowledge of a witness, such as testimony regarding statements made by someone other than the witness, and that therefore may be inadmissible to establish the truth of a particular contention because the accuracy of the evidence cannot be verified through cross-examination. Tying the two together, basically it would be anything that can't b…

That's a take, but it's far from reality. Witnesses are a central evidence in most cases.

When the parties are present for cross examination it's not hearsay.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#357

Post by awb »

blendergeek wrote: post #309
awb wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc. It's possible that some on…

> The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc. In Missouri (as in most US States with capital punishment), the death penalty must separately be approved by the jury after the jury…

Thank you, I learned something new. And overall if you’re going to have the death penalty , probably a better process than a single judge deciding.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#358

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

brewdad wrote: post #334
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they knew the items were in the car because they searched his car and found the items. He has not, as far as I know, offered any alternative explanation of how he came into possession of a murder victim's random personal items.

Nor is he required to give an explanation. The prosecutor must prove that possession of the items leads to proof of guilt.

That's true, but I'm not sure what your point is. The prosecutor did prove that, convincing a unanimous jury that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Perhaps you're thinking of it as a self-incrimination issue? That's a misperception I've seen before, where people generalize from Fifth Amendment protections to a broad rule that criminal defendants can never be at a disadvantage for refusing to explain themselves. That's not the case. If the prosecution says you obtained some items by taking them from the victim, and that's the only reasonable explanation the jury hears for how you got them, it's 100% within bounds for them to infer it's the correct explanation.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#359

Post by awb »

jasonlotito wrote: post #225
knodi123 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA is published by The Innocence Project, which obviously only presents one side of the story. I was also using a statement from the governor, https://governor.mo.gov/press-releases/archive/state-carry-o... who makes some assertions which contradict the innocence project's.

Did they explain why they convened a board to research the topic to get to the bottom of this and then disbanded the board before they finished? Seems kind of shady when the government says "We are not sure, we need to do more research before we do this" and then never actually do that research and just kill someone? Either you trust the government, and agree that they should have waited. Or you don't trust the gover…

The previous governor stayed the execution and created the commission to investigate which lasted 6 years until the new governor was elected. The new governor disbanded the commission. They were from different political parties and probably had different views on the death penalty / the use of state resources.

Re: Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence

#360

Post by awb »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #204
randallsquared wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote > neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. from The Innocence Project seems carefully worded to imply that they didn't say anything that mattered, while still leaving open that they provided information that the police had, but which had not be publicly released.

It's worded that way as if one side of the interview knows something, it can easily leak to the other side intentionally or accidentally.

Whereas the Governor’s statement does say that information provided to the police by one witness was not known publicly.
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