Two BLack Muslim Inmates who maintained innocence Killed by states of Missouri and South Carolina

Missouri executed Marcellus Williams (Khalifa) by lethal injection Tuesday evening, despite his insistence on his innocence and his request for clemency from the governor and the court so that he would not be executed, and despite the objections of the prosecution and the request of the victim's family not to carry out the death sentence. The New York Times reports that Gov. Mike Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected Williams' last hope, and the Missouri Department of Corrections announced that he died at 6:10 p.m. at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

“Marcellus Williams should have been alive today,” District Attorney Wesley Bell said in a statement. “There were multiple points in the timeline when decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty.”

Williams, according to Sheila Dewan’s report for the newspaper, converted to Islam while in prison and adopted the name “Khalifa.” He appeared in court in recent weeks wearing a white skullcap, opted to have an imam with him in the execution chamber, and when offered the chance to write a final statement, wrote, “Thank God for everything.”

Over the years, Williams, 55, has received reprieves from execution but never a vacated conviction. A 2021 law gave him another path to appeal his conviction for the 1998 killing of reporter Felicia Gayle in her suburban St. Louis home. Under the law, prosecutors can file a motion to vacate a conviction if they believe there was a miscarriage of justice.

St. Louis County District Attorney Bell reviewed Williams’ case and filed such a motion in January, alleging that Williams’ constitutional rights were violated in the investigation and trial. He argued that the defense attorney failed to present convincing evidence that could have saved Williams from the death penalty, and that the prosecutor improperly rejected potential black jurors, resulting in a jury of 11 whites and one black, with Williams black and the victim white.

Bell wrote that there was reason to believe Williams was innocent, detailing multiple issues with the credibility of Williams’s key witnesses, and noting that Williams did not own the footprints, the hairs found at the crime scene, or the DNA on the murder weapon.

Bell offered Williams a deal that would have spared him the death penalty, and the victim’s widow, Gayle, agreed to the deal, but state Attorney General Andrew Bailey objected, saying the law that allowed Bell to file a motion to vacate the sentence did not allow him to reach a new sentence.

As Bell’s motion made its way through the court system, the state attorney general asked the state Supreme Court to set a date for Williams’ execution, which was set for September 24.

Judge Hilton and then the state Supreme Court rejected Bell’s arguments, saying multiple courts and hearings had found Williams guilty and that there was no credible evidence of constitutional violations. Governor Parson also refused to pardon him and ignored the demands of Williams’ supporters, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Missouri actress Cori Bush and Sir Richard Branson, the music mogul known for his opposition to the death penalty.

South Carolina Kills Khalilullah despite witness' retraction

Defense lawyers are fighting to stop the execution of Khalilullah, also known as Freddie Eugene Owens, after a key witness retracted the testimony he relied on to convict him, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

Two days before the scheduled execution, the main witness for the prosecution came forward to say that he lied during the trial and that justice was about to execute an innocent man.

Khalilullah was charged with an armed robbery in November 1997 in which a convenience store cashier, Erin Graves, was killed.

He was 19 at the time, but Khalilullah has long maintained his innocence in the killing of Graves, a 41-year-old mother of three who was shot in the head during the robbery.

Police found no forensic evidence linking Khalilullah to the incident, and the main evidence presented to the court was the testimony of his friend and co-defendant, Steven Golden, who was also charged with robbery and murder.

Golden and Khalilullah were scheduled to face a joint trial on murder charges, but since the case began in 1999, Golden pleaded guilty to murder, armed robbery and criminal conspiracy, and agreed to testify against Khalilullah.

But on Wednesday, two days before his scheduled execution, Golden filed a bombshell written statement, stating that Khalilullah “was not the person who shot Erin Graves” and that he “was not present” during the robbery.

Golden said he had concealed the identity of the “real shooter” for fear that “my colleagues would kill me,” and that he had come forward now because he wanted “a clear conscience.”

Golden claimed that he was under the influence of drugs when police interviewed him days after the robbery, and that investigators told him that they knew Khalilullah was the killer and that they just wanted my side of the story.

He said he feared being sentenced to death if he did not testify as he was told, especially since prosecutors had promised him that he would not face the death penalty or life in prison if he testified against Khalilullah, which is what prompted him to agree.

In a response Thursday to the new admission, the attorney general’s office asserted that Golden was not trustworthy, saying he “now made a sworn statement that contradicts his multiple sworn statements over the past 20 years.”

Prosecutors noted that other people had testified that Khalilullah had confessed to them that he was the shooter, but defense lawyers rejected that and argued that they had presented evidence that the testimony on which their client was convicted was “not credible.” The state Supreme Court sided with the attorney general, ruling that the new evidence did not amount to “exceptional circumstances” that would justify acquitting the defendant.

South Carolina had unofficially halted executions in 2011 after drug companies stopped supplying lethal injection drugs, fearing public pressure, but the state restocked its supply after passing a law last year that concealed the identity of suppliers.

On Friday, September 20 Khalilullah executed. He became one of the youngest people at the time of the crime to be executed in South Carolina in decades, and his lawyers have petitioned the governor's office to halt the execution. "Executing Khalilullah would be a gross miscarriage of justice," said Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of the anti-death penalty group. "Khalil should not die because of someone else's mistake. That's not justice."