#The State of Missouri Has Executed an Innocent Man

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

A poem written by Marcellus Williams about Palestine.

Despite DNA evidence proving his innocence, he was executed on September 24, 2024.

[stardustanddaffodils]

Before Williams was executed, his attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, issued the below statement: “Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man, Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams. The victim’s family opposes his execution. Jurors, who originally sentenced him to death, now oppose his execution. The prosecutor’s office that convicted and sentenced him to death has now admitted they were wrong and zealously fought to undo the conviction and save Mr. Williams’ life. More than one million concerned citizens and faith leaders implored Governor Parson to commute Marcellus’s death sentence. Missouri will kill him anyway. “That is not justice. And we must all question any system that would allow this to occur. The execution of an innocent person is the most extreme manifestation of Missouri’s obsession with ‘finality’ over truth, justice, and humanity, at any cost."

Edit: he was a poet.

[thelambliesdown1974]

Last week, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton declined to vacate the conviction and death sentence of Marcellus, an innocent man on death row in Missouri. This means Marcelllus’ execution will go forward as planned on Sept. 24.

The state of Missouri has admitted major constitutional errors including removing potential jurors based on race, and mishandling the DNA evidence that could have proved Marcellus' innocence.

There’s still time for the courts or Gov. Parson to stop Missouri from making this irreversible mistake. We must do everything in our power to stop this wrongful execution. And you can help. Here’s how.

Keep calling Gov. Parson at 417-373-3400 and urge him to stop Marcellus’ execution.

Please help us prevent Missouri from making the irreversible mistake of killing an innocent person. Your voice could make a crucial difference in the fight for justice.

Text and photo courtesy of the Innocence Project

[sentinelleblr]

It feels more and more that we live in a lawless country.  Guns and mass killings proliferate because the Supreme Court that decided the president is above the law also decided that the Second Amendment confers a “right” to own firearms that did not exist for more than 200 years in our country.  When Donald Trump’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, they made it legal for states to outlaw abortions with legal language that has led to the deaths of dozens of women who sought help for pregnancies that were in extremis and were denied proper care. We are executing pregnant women just as we execute innocent prisoners.  Laws do not mean anything when they are written for the purpose of making murder legal.  It is essential that we vote for better people to make our laws, a better and less cruel way of living, and a better country.  We don’t have to live this way.  

Vote Democrat. Bring back truth and decency in politics.

[6marzipanology6]

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Almost 7 years after it was supposed to review new DNA evidence, the state of Missouri has once again scheduled Marcellus Williams to be executed on Sept. 24 for a crime that DNA proves he did not commit.

Please call 417-373-3400 now to hear instructions from the Innocence Project and then be connected with the Governor's office to ask them to stop Marcellus's execution.

The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney reviewed the DNA results and filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction because he believed the DNA results proved by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Williams did not commit this crime.

The Missouri Supreme Court just denied a motion seeking to withdraw the September 24 execution date for Marcellus Williams, an innocent man on death row. Mr. Williams had moved the court to reconsider its order scheduling his execution after the St. Louis County Circuit Court set a hearing for August 21 on the county prosecuting attorney’s motion to vacate Mr. Williams’s wrongful conviction.

Although no court has ever considered the new exculpatory evidence, the Missouri Supreme Court is still going ahead with the execution date for Mr. Williams just one month after that hearing.

[karinyosa]

id:

a tweet that reads, "y'all, we gotta week to save (hashtag) marcellus williams. call governor parson and demand a stay of execution. 4173733400. here's your script:"

below is a screenshot of a script that reads as follows:

hi, my name is [NAME] and i am calling regarding marcellus williams. i urge governor parson to stop the scheduled execution on september 24. marcellus willliams is an innocent man, and the state of missouri has admitted this after reviewing the dna evidence. executing an innocent individual is not only a stain on morality, but also an egregious wrong that cannot be undone.

end id.

you can also demand a pardon or clemency for him.

[tieflingkisser]

SIGN: Stop the Sept. 24 Execution of Marcellus Williams, an Innocent Man

Marcellus Williams is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24 for a crime DNA proves he did not commit. The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney reviewed these DNA results and filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction because he believed the DNA results proved by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Williams did not commit this crime. Although the circuit court has not yet scheduled a hearing to address this motion — and no court has ever considered the new exculpatory evidence — the Missouri Supreme Court set an execution date for Mr. Williams.

DNA clears Marcellus Williams of murder. Why is Missouri hell-bent on killing him? | Opinion

It is so easy to schedule an execution for an innocent man on death row. And it is incredibly hard, under the law in place in so much of the United States, to reopen the case of a person who has shown powerful evidence of innocence. Even DNA evidence of innocence is no surefire ticket to freedom. The case of Marcellus Williams is a chilling reminder that decades into the era of modern post-conviction DNA testing, exonerations and innocence projects — an innocence revolution — some attorneys general and judges would rather execute the innocent than admit error. The Missouri Supreme Court has set a Sept. 24 execution date in Williams’ case. Yet, post-conviction DNA tests show that Williams did not commit the crime.

[...]

Marcellus Williams’ case has the same flaws as the cases of those already exonerated by DNA. In 1998, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter was stabbed to death in her home. Years later, independent labs performed DNA tests on the knife used as the murder weapon. The tests cleared Williams as the source of the male DNA found on that knife. And like in so many cases, the DNA test excluding the person highlighted how little evidence had been presented at Williams’ trial. The perpetrator had left other forensic evidence at the scene, including a bloody shoe print and hairs. Williams was excluded as the source of all those items. How could he even be convicted, much less sentenced to death in the first place? The only evidence of guilt came from two shady informants, who had been rewarded with promises of leniency and money, and who claimed at trial that Williams had confessed to them.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Marcellus Williams

Marcellus Williams, whose murder conviction was questioned by a prosecutor in light of what he described as new evidence, will be executed this evening (24/09/24) after the US Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution.

The court offered no explanation for its decision, which is common for cases on its emergency docket. There were no noted dissents in two of Williiams’ appeals. In a third, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have granted the request to pause the execution.

The 55-year-old is set to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. CT at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

The US Supreme Court’s action came a day after Missouri’s supreme court and governor refused to grant a stay of execution. Williams’ attorneys filed a flurry of appeal efforts based on what they describe as new evidence – including alleged bias in jury selection and contamination of the murder weapon prior to trial. The victim’s family had asked the inmate be spared death.

“Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man, and they will do it even though the prosecutor doesn’t want him to be executed, the jurors who sentenced him to death don’t want him executed and the victims themselves don’t want him to be executed,” one of Williams’ attorneys, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “We have a system that values finality over fairness, and this is the result that we will get from that.”

The decision came just moments before Bushnell’s interview with Tapper.

“It is news to all of us, and I think that it should be a shame to all of us, that we have a system that will let a man be executed in spite of all of this, really is not a system of justice,” the attorney said, adding that members of Williams’ legal team, as well as his family, will be with him ahead of the execution.

Williams was convicted in 2001 of killing Felicia Gayle, a former newspaper reporter found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.

Recently, the top prosecutor in St. Louis County joined Williams’ attorneys in asking for the conviction to be overturned after new testimony from the 2001 trial prosecutor and recent DNA testing showing evidence contamination.

The case highlights the issue of potentially putting an innocent person to death – an inherent risk of capital punishment. At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated, including four in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Attorneys “received a report indicating the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to an assistant prosecuting attorney and an investigator who had handled the murder weapon without gloves prior to trial,” the state’s judicial branch said.

But the Missouri Attorney General’s Office said the new DNA findings released last month don’t exonerate Williams.

“In this case, a new round of DNA testing proved the office was right all along; the knife in question has been handled by many actors, including law enforcement, since being found,” Attorney General Andrew Bailey said.

“In addition, one of the defense’s own experts previously testified he could not rule out the possibility that Williams’s DNA was also on the knife. He could only testify to the fact that enough actors had handled the knife throughout the legal process that others’ DNA was present.”

Other evidence that helped convict Williams “remains intact,” the attorney general said.

“The victim’s personal items were found in Williams’s car after the murder. A witness testified that Williams had sold the victim’s laptop to him. Williams confessed to his girlfriend and an inmate in the St. Louis City Jail, and William’s girlfriend saw him dispose of the bloody clothes worn during the murder,” the attorney general’s office said.

Williams’ attorneys had asked the US Supreme Court to stay the execution, citing “newly-discovered evidence from the trial prosecutor’s testimony” last month.

During a motion-to-vacate hearing August 28, a prosecutor from Williams’ 2001 trial “admitted that he had struck (a potential juror from the jury pool) because like Mr. Williams, (the potential juror) was Black,” Williams’ attorneys wrote in an emergency request for the US Supreme Court to intervene.

“There was a racial component to this,” attorney Jonathan Potts said at a Missouri Supreme Court hearing Monday. But the Missouri Attorney General’s Office disputed that interpretation of the trial prosecutor’s testimony.

“He said they look like brothers,” Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said at the hearing.

“What did he say when asked directly, ‘Did you strike someone … with part of the reason for striking someone because (you’re) Black?’ He said no, absolutely not,” Spillane said. “And he explained that that would be a violation.”

In the end, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously decided not to halt Williams’ execution because his team “failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams’ actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial,” the court’s opinion read.

And “because this Court rejects this appeal on the merits, the motion for stay of execution is overruled as moot.”

Republican Gov. Michael Parson, who also has the power to halt Williams’ execution, said he would not intervene.

“Mr. Williams has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction,” Parson said after the state Supreme Court’s decision.

“No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence, as such, Mr. Williams’ punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.”

The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said it reached an agreement with Williams last month. Under the consent judgment – approved by the court and Gayle’s family – Williams would enter an Alford plea of guilty to first-degree murder and be resentenced to life in prison.

But the state attorney general’s office opposed the deal and appealed to the state Supreme Court, which blocked the agreement.

The Williams case has pitted Bell – who became St. Louis County’s top prosecutor in 2018 and is now a Democratic candidate for Congress – against Republican state Attorney General Bailey, who is seeking reelection.

Bailey fought Bell’s efforts to get Williams’ conviction vacated, saying new DNA test results would not exonerate Williams.

Williams’ team filed a clemency petition to the US Supreme Court last week, noting Missouri’s previous governor had postponed Williams’ execution indefinitely amid questions about the integrity of Williams’ trial.

Former GOP Gov. Eric Greitens previously halted Williams’ execution and formed a board to investigate his case and determine whether he should be granted clemency.

“The Board investigated Williams’ case for the next six years — until Governor Michael Parson abruptly terminated the process,” Williams’ attorneys wrote.

After Parson took office, he dissolved the board and revoked Williams’ stay of execution, the inmate’s attorneys said. That decision deprived Williams of his right to due process, his lawyers argued.

“The Governor’s actions have violated Williams’ constitutional rights and created an exceptionally urgent need for the Court’s attention,” Williams’ attorneys said in court documents.

Parson defended his decision. “This Board was established nearly six years ago, and it is time to move forward,” Parson said last summer. “We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim’s family in limbo, and solving nothing. This administration won’t do that.”

But allowing Williams to be executed without further investigation would undermine the criminal justice system, his attorneys said.

The US Supreme Court “must step in to prevent this irreparable injustice,” Bushnell said before Tuesday’s action by the high court.

“Missouri is poised to execute an innocent man, an outcome that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system.”

[beardedmrbean]

ST. LOUIS — Christopher Dunn has spent 33 years in prison for a murder he has claimed from the outset that he didn’t commit. A hearing this week will determine if he should go free.

St. Louis prosecutors are now convinced Dunn is telling the truth, but lawyers for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office disagree and will argue for keeping him behind bars. Dunn, 52, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the state prison in Locking, Missouri, but is expected to attend the hearing before Judge Jason Sengheiser that begins Tuesday.

The hearing follows a motion filed in February By St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore. A Missouri law adopted in 2021 allows prosecutors to request hearings in cases where they believe there is evidence of a wrongful conviction.

Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers in 1990, based largely on the testimony of two boys who said they witnessed the shooting. The witnesses, ages 12 and 14 at the time, later recanted, claiming they were coerced by police and prosecutors.

In May 2023, then-St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner filed a motion to vacate Dunn’s sentence. But Gardner resigned days later, and after his appointment by Gov. Mike Parson, Gore wanted to conduct his own investigation. Gore announced in February that he would seek to overturn the conviction.

Dunn, who is Black, was 18 when Rogers was shot to death on the night of May 18, 1990. No physical evidence linked Dunn to the crime but the two boys told police at the time that they saw Dunn standing in the gangway of the house next door, just minutes before shots rang out.

Rogers and the two boys ran when they heard the shots, but Roger was fatally struck, according to court records.

A judge has heard Dunn’s innocence case before.

At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, Judge William Hickle agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But Hickle declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.

The 2021 law has resulted in the the release of two men who both spent decades in prison.

In 2021, Kevin Strickland was freed after more than 40 years behind bars for three killings in Kansas City after a judge ruled that he had been wrongfully convicted in 1979.

Last February, a St. Louis judge overturned the conviction of Lamar Johnson, who spent nearly 28 years in prison for a killing he always said he didn’t commit. At a hearing in December 2022, another man testified that it was he — not Johnson — who joined a second man in the killing. A witness testified that police had “bullied” him into implicating Johnson. And Johnson’s girlfriend at the time had testified that they were together that night.

A hearing date is still pending in another case in which a Missouri murder conviction is being challenged for a man who was nearly executed for the crime.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in January to vacate the conviction of Marcellus Williams, who narrowly escaped lethal injection seven years ago for the fatal stabbing of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Bell’s motion said three experts have determined that Williams’ DNA was not on the handle of the butcher knife used in the killing.

[jewishrizahawkeye]

I'm in Springfield Ohio. My baby sister is terrified and has missed so much school because of bomb threats.

My neighbours who are Haitian have had their car windows smashed multiple times and are moving out of state now.

I don't think it's lack of critical thinking that made people think Chappell is closet MAGA when she says Republicans cause problems are just as bad as the ones caused by democratics.

Chappell has a right to her own opinion and to free speech. I have a right to be mad that she doesn't think my town deserves to live in peace because she thinks Joe Biden wants to kill her or whatever her "problems" with the Democrats actually are. I have a right to say that too, because I'm also a person with free speech rights.

WOW you fucking missed the entire point of what chappell was saying! if you actually saw her video and listened you would know that.

you have a right to your own opinion and free speech but you going out of your way to misinterpret what someone said by saying “i’m voting for kamala but i won’t put my project behind her because the democrats aren’t perfect and are also causing problems” is a critical thinking issue! she was talking about how democrats have failed marginalized communities (which she knows about since she’s from missouri and a small town fyi) and have also endorsed a genocide and are sending our tax dollars to that!

her point was that both side have issues and just because democrats are the lesser of two evils doesn’t mean they’re completely free of sin. if you had actually listened to her videos and statements you would know she does care about your town!

but sure, keep saying her statement is MAGA even though she has said fuck trump and she’s voting for kamala but refuses to fully endorse a person who she doesn’t agree with fully.

there’s a fucking difference between endorsing and voting and you clearly don’t understand it.

but this also comes down to the fact that we shouldn’t be idolizing celebrities so much that we have more discourse and discussion over what they say about politics rather than the actual fucking politicians! last night marcellus williams was executed for a crime he didn’t commit because of politicians! why are yall more focused on what chappell roans fucking statement on who she’s voting for over the fact that our government ignored the cries of millions of people including the victims family and sentenced an innocent man to death because of racism!

and fyi, a lot of the people who are spearheading this misreading of chappells statement are zionists who are pissed she supports palestine. but sure get in my inbox and keep missing what chappell was saying because you didn’t think!

[craftykittyscientist]

hello everyone!

I want to talk about Marcellus Williams, also known as Khaliifah, who is scheduled to be executed in Missouri on September 24th for a crime DNA proves that he did not commit. There are several glaring injustices surrounding his conviction, including mishandling of evidence.

BACKGROUND: Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams was sentenced to death for the tragic 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, who was stabbed to death in her own home. The perpetrator left considerable forensic evidence at the crime scene, none of which matched Mr Williams. The prosecution case was based entirely on the unreliable testimony of two witnesses who were incentivised by promises of leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money. Neither of them provided new information, and their accounts conflicted with each other, their own prior statements and also crime scene evidence. They could also not be independently verified. In 2015, Missouri Supreme Court stayed Mr Williams' execution and appointed a special master to review DNA testing.

THE TESTING SHOWED THAT MR WILLIAMS WAS NOT THE SOURCE OF MALE DNA FOUND ON THE MURDER WEAPON. Nonetheless, in 2017, the special master sent the case back to the Missouri Supreme Court, who then rescheduled the execution WITHOUT CONSIDERING THE DNA TESTING. The then Governor, Eric Greitens, stayed the execution AFTER Mr Williams' last meal, and convened a board of inquiry to investigate the case. Under Missouri law, the stay of execution was to remain in place until the board of inquiry concluded its review and issued a formal report. EVEN SO, the current Governor Mike Parson, without warning or notice, DISSOLVED THE BOARD WITHOUT REPORT OR RECOMMENDATION WHILE THE INQUIRY WAS STILL GOING. The Attorney General Andrew Bailey then sought a new execution date. Mr Williams attempts to sue Governor Parson for violation of the law and his constitutional rights, but the lawsuit is dismissed in June 2024. The execution is set for September.

MISHANDLING OF EVIDENCE: In January 2024 there was more movement with the case as St Louis County prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell concluded Mr Williams was innocent (due to the DNA evidence) and moved to vacate his conviction. The findings of three independent DNA experts was reviewed, again, all three of them concluding that Mr Williams' DNA was not on the murder weapon. Sickeningly, it has also been found that there was CONSIDERABLE MISHANDLING OF FORENSIC EVIDENCE. The office of Attorney General Andrew Bailey himself stated that the knife used to kill Ms Gayle had “been handled by many actors, including law enforcement", and FOR THIS REASON, Mr Williams could not be exonerated! There was also DNA from an investigator for the prosecutor’s office at the time of Williams’ trial, and the prosecutor who handled the case could also not be excluded. In fact, that prosecutor stated that HE TOUCHED THE KNIFE AT LEAST FIVE TIMES WHILE NOT WEARING GLOVES! To Attorney General Bailey, it seems that this heinous miscarriage of justice is more reason to execute Marcellus Williams rather than exonerate him.

RACIAL BIAS WHEN SELECTING JURY: Another injustice in the Marcellus Williams case was the selection of a mostly white jury: eleven white jurors to one Black juror. This was not a coincidence - Keith Larner, the assistant prosecutor during the 2001 trial, removed six of seven qualified potential Black jurors, including one because he thought he looked like Mr Williams. Mr Larner was questioned about this in the recent hearing, and Kansas City Star reports, "They looked like brothers — familial brothers, not Black brothers, Larner tried to clarify." Furthermore, one prospective Black juror was not selected because he worked for the Post Office, and postal workers, according to the prosecutor, tend to be "very liberal". Nonetheless, he still approved a white post office worker for the jury. The jury took less than two hours (including lunch) to decide to sentence Marcellus Williams to death.

what you can do to help is sign the petition, talk about this, and share! save an innocent man’s life.

text is copied from this person! please retweet and like this post :)

[shutterlens]

Stop the Execution of Marcellus Williams Before It's Too Late

I sincerely apologize to you all for not speaking up on my Tumblr account about this sooner.

Marcellus Williams, an innocent man, is going to be executed by the state of Missouri tomorrow, on September 24, for a murder that he did not commit, despite the recent DNA evidence that proves his innocence.

Please call Governor Parson and implore him to stop the wrongful execution of Marcellus Williams at the number (417) 373-3400 before it's too late.

[silicon14blog]

Imagine facing execution for a crime you didn’t commit. That’s the reality Marcellus Williams is living right now, and time is running out to save his life.

Last week, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton declined to vacate the conviction and death sentence of Marcellus, an innocent man on death row in Missouri. This means Marcelllus’ execution will go forward as planned on Sept. 24.

The state of Missouri has admitted major constitutional errors including removing potential jurors based on race, and mishandling the DNA evidence that could have proved Marcellus' innocence.

There’s still time for the courts or Gov. Parson to stop Missouri from making this irreversible mistake. We must do everything in our power to stop this wrongful execution. And you can help. Here’s how.

Keep calling Gov. Parson at 417-373-3400 and urge him to stop Marcellus’ execution. Please help us prevent Missouri from making the irreversible mistake of killing an innocent person. Your voice could make a crucial difference in the fight for justice.

[crescentcampbell]

Help Save An Innocent Man from Execution

Marcellus Williams is a man who has been wrongfully imprisoned by the state of Missouri. Evidence suggests that Marcellus did not commit the crime that he was incarcerated for. Even the family of the victims do not want Marcellus Williams executed. There's one day left to help save him from execution. He has served nearly 24 years for a crime that the state tampered with and has ignored DNA evidence that could clear him. Help get his case reevaluated and stop his execution by contacting Governor Mike Parson. Help save Marcellus Williams from execution. Everything about his case can be found here on the Innocence Project website: x

[grahminradarin]

The State of Missouri is going to execute wrongfully convicted man on Tuesday. The prosecutor that convicted him has admitted he fucked up and that Mr. Williams did not get a fair or legally valid trial. The governor of Missouri can stop this at any time. Please go to the website and call that phone number to petition the governor to do so. There is a script on the site if you don't know what to say. Please help Mr. Williams.

[tieflingkisser]

10 years post-Ferguson, advocates seek prosecutor accountability

Advocates say there’s been little effort by prosecutors to free wrongfully convicted St. Louisans

A coalition of racial justice advocacy groups in St. Louis has quietly issued the first in a series of “Prosecutor Watch” reports on the role and powers of the prosecutor and its function in the local criminal legal system. Prosecutors, the coalition contends, have staggering authority to enact violence on communities. The groups say prosecutors’ offices are structured to prize convictions over truth, and in their pursuit of convictions, “prosecutors regularly abuse their power.” The introductory report gleans insights from more than three years of collective focus by the Prosecutor Organizing Table, which is made up of local decarceration leaders who spend the bulk of their working lives trying to free Black and poor people from the clutches of the carceral state: Action St. Louis, ArchCity Defenders, Forward through Ferguson, Freedom Community Center, MacArthur Justice Center, and Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. Advocates told Prism there’s been little prosecutorial fervor to free wrongfully convicted St. Louisans, even innocence cases. Children, however, continue to be charged as adults, and poor people are still landing in jail for 200 days or more because they can’t afford cash bail. This human misery has been happening under the watch of “progressive prosecutors” carried to office with a reform mandate on the national wave after the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, Missouri.  To better understand these dynamics, reports evaluating the individual prosecutors’ offices are slated to follow. The next report will focus on Wesley Bell’s office in St. Louis County and the office of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabriel Gore. Specially appointed by Missouri’s governor, Gore assumed office on May 30, 2023, replacing Kim Gardner, who’d resigned under extreme pressure from state Republicans. Assessments of Bell’s and Gore’s offices will be based on five key metrics fleshed out in the report: transparency, charging decisions, pretrial detention, conviction and sentencing, and commitment to community-based alternatives.  Mike Milton leads Freedom Community Center, which advocates for transformative justice shaped, in part, by survivors of the criminal legal system like himself.  He told Prism convening the Prosecutor Organizing Table in 2020 and publishing the reports in 2024 are fruits of a long-term strategy born in the period between Gardner’s election as St. Louis circuit attorney in 2016 and Bell’s as St. Louis county prosecutor in 2018. “It was a long strategy of ‘how do we fight mass incarceration’ as we came out of the hopes of Ferguson. Ferguson told us there has to be a different way of dealing with incarceration,” Milton said. By the time the Prosecutor Organizing Table began convening, it was clear to Milton that regime changes alone would not move the needle. “We were trying to reach out to him several times. [Bell] just would not respond to us,” Milton said. “He was taking credit for the jail population decrease, but it was actually The Bail Project, my [former] organization, that was posting bail and dropping the jail population, like 200 people a month.” Milton became concerned his work was being undermined. “Bell was still recommending cash bail at that time, and he knew better,” he said. Michelle Smith, the co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty (MADP), said her organization has barely recovered from the emotional upheaval of the April 9 execution of Brian Dorsey, and the state is already set to kill another Missouri man, David Hosier, on June 11.  Smith rejects any notion of disposable people.  “Right now, I know several people who are wrongfully convicted, not necessarily on death row, but who have strong innocence cases out of St. Louis County,” Smith said. But when family members ask about progress, they’re given pat answers: “‘We’re looking into that, we’ll let you know,’” she said, parroting them.

[keep reading]