The State of Missouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams on Sept. 24 for a crime that even prosecutors now say he did not commit. On Sept. 12, a Missouri judge denied a motion filed by prosecutors to vacate Williams’ conviction and death penalty. Despite more than half a million petition signatures demanding Williams be freed, Missouri is set to proceed with the execution. Michelle Smith, Co-Director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, joins Rattling the Bars to explain Williams’ case and the fight to free him before it’s too late.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
In this country, according to the Constitution of the United States, a presumption of innocent goes with a person that’s arrested. They’re presumed innocent until they are found guilty. It’s not they’re presumed innocent until they exonerate themselves. It’s the burden is always on the state to prosecute a person beyond a reasonable doubt.
We have a situation today, where a man that is innocent, not by me saying this, but by the very people that prosecuted him saying this, that he’s innocent. Not me saying this, the evidence, the DNA evidence is saying this. Not me saying this, but a preponderance of evidence and people coming out on behalf of Marcellus Williams Khaliifah, better known as Khaliifah, who is slated to be executed the 24th of this month.
Joining me today is a supporter and an advocate for Khaliifah, is Michelle Smith. Welcome, Michelle.
Michelle Smith:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate the space to talk about Khaliifah’s case.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, so let’s start right here. First, tell us a little bit about what you do, then we are going to what’s going on with Khaliifah.
Michelle Smith:
Sure. So, well, as far as myself and my organization, I am the co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. We are the only statewide entity in Missouri that primarily fights to get rid of capital punishment. That is our main goal. And, in doing that, we do a lot of different things.
We do things from legislative advocacy, trying to change the actual law, to connecting with our community, and educating our citizens about the usage of the death penalty in Missouri. And also, we advocate for people who are on death row, which is what we’re doing currently for Khaliifah. So, we do a lot. And, this case right now, it is very dire. He has an execution date in, what, 11 days, and so we’re really trying to amplify his case, this injustice, and what is happening in our state concerning the pending execution of an innocent Black man.
Mansa Musa:
All right, so let’s right there.
Okay, an innocent black man. All right, make the case based on what the facts say, why he’s innocent, but start with what they say that he allegedly done.
Michelle Smith:
Sure.
So in 1998 there was a, the victim’s name is Felicia Gale, and she was in her home and there was a person who entered her home, and brutally killed her, and it was a tragic situation for sure. I never want to take away from that. A family lost [inaudible 00:03:30].
And so after this happened in 1998, a few months prior, another person, another woman, had been murdered in her home in a similar fashion. And the medical examiner at the time said they looked similar, but also the way that they were killed with a knife from their home, and also this knife was basically left sticking out of their bodies. So the medical examiner thought that there was some similarities, maybe it was some type of serial killer situation, but both of the cases went cold for a very long time. There were no suspects and no one arrested in either of those cases.
A little over a year later, the victim in this case, Mrs. Gale, her husband, who was a doctor, he decided to offer a $10,000 reward for someone to come forward with information because he and his family wanted justice for the killing of his wife. So once he offered that $10,000 reward, several people came forward basically saying that Khaliifah had confessed to killing this victim. And those people were… One was a girlfriend, someone he was dating, and another person was a person he met in jail.
So we all call that a jailhouse informant, or a jailhouse snitch. So these two particular people who I’ve actually learned knew each other, the informant, and the person in jail, and the girlfriend. So they both said Khaliifah basically told them that he had killed this victim, and the main crux of the case during that time… And he went to trial in 2001…
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Michelle Smith:
So several years after the murder, he went to trial. The informants both received money, they received $5,000. In one case with the jailhouse informant, he actually met the victim’s husband at the prosecutor’s office where the victim’s husband handed him $5,000 in cash. So it’s just egregious.
But, the main crux of the case at that time was these two people’s statements, and the fact that Khaliifah was in possession of the victim’s laptop computer. Now, you and I both know that there is a time, and even still today, stolen property is sold, handed off, et cetera. And so the fact that Khaliifah had her laptop was not necessarily surprising to me, because people do trade in stolen property.
And, interestingly enough, the girlfriend at the time, who said Khaliifah had the laptop, it was later found out that she’s the one who gave him the laptop, because she [inaudible 00:06:18] off the street again. At that point it had been stolen property. So he had been in possession of the victim’s laptop, and these people said that he told them that he had done this.
But, when we look at the actual evidence, and when I say evidence, I mean physical evidence, not only blood at the scene, but things like footprints. There was a bloody footprint left at the home from the person who had did this. Those did not match Khaliifah. Also, the victim, of course, she struggled, this was a brutal situation, and the victim was clutching hairs in her hand of the perpetrator, the person that had harmed her, and when they tested those hairs that were clutched in her hand, they did not match Khaliifah either. Any fingerprints in the home did not match him either, and the blood on the knife also did not match Khaliifah.
So there is no physical evidence that actually matches Khaliifah in this case. Again, the only thing that the prosecution originally put their case on is these two “witnesses” who said that Khaliifah told them that he did it, and the fact that he had item of the victims in his possession, including her laptop.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, answer this for the benefit of our audience…
Michelle Smith:
Go ahead.
Mansa Musa:
Because the error that you talking about, that he got locked up, The Innocence Project, the DNA became like the national standard for exonerating. Kirk Bloodsworth, they got a law I call Kirk Bloodsworth law, but Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up with me, and Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up in the 80s, ’85 or ’86. And Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up for allegedly raping and killing a little young girl. They had the underwear of the little young girl in their possession, the state did, and never tested it. So when they ultimately tested it, it exonerated him. But what that did that started this national campaign to give value to DNA evidence. That’s what this did. And I’m setting this backdrop up.
So whenever DNA evidence came up during that period, during the late nineties, or in that whole ’90 and 2000, and the OJ, you had… DNA evidence was like the crux. It was like the end of all. Why wasn’t this evidence taken into, if you know, why wasn’t this evidence, which is evidence that’s scientifically sound evidence, because you got hundreds of thousands of people that are locked up to this day based on DNA evidence. Why was this evidence excluded and didn’t go towards his innocence to your knowledge?
Michelle Smith:
Well, I’ll say a couple of things.
First, getting DNA tested in cases is always and often contentious. So, often the courts don’t approve the testing. You assume that when a case has some type of evidence, it is automatically tested. That’s not necessarily the case. So in Marcellus’ or Khaliifah’s case, the forensic evidence, the DNA was not tested until 2015, and I mean the current good DNA testing, not just like a blood test, but actual…
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Michelle Smith:
So it was conducted in 2015.
And during that time what happened was the DNA on the weapon, it was not Khaliifah’s DNA, but whoever’s DNA was, it was unknown. They didn’t know who. So of course the assumption is the DNA must match the perpetrator, and they did not know who that was. They were not allowed to run the DNA through the FBI system, I think it’s called CODIS. They were not allowed to run it through the system, so for many years that DNA went unknown.
However, a few weeks ago, probably mid-August, some DNA testing was conducted further on that knife, and when that testing came back, they had tested the prosecutor who originally prosecuted the case in 2001 and one of his investigators. And, interestingly enough, the DNA came back to match them. So what that told the current prosecutor’s office is that the evidence was contaminated, because obviously the prosecutor didn’t do it himself. So the fact that the DNA on the knife matched him, meaning that there was some contamination that happened, there was some mishandling of the evidence. And so the fact that the reality is the prosecutor’s DNA is on the weapon and also that investigator means that there was some type of breakdown in the chain of custody and the handling of that material.
A few weeks ago, August 28th when the hearing was held, that original prosecutor, he got on the stand, and testified, and he basically said that “Yes, I did handle the knife without any gloves.” He said the trial again happened three years after the murder, and because they had already run the fingerprint testing and the blood testing, he felt like it was okay for him to handle the knife without gloves. Actually said he did it all the time, which is concerning to me. And so that’s how his DNA got on the knife.
He handled it without gloves. He said he pulled it out of the package, and put the evidence sticker on it, and he showed it to several of the witnesses to confirm that that’s the knife that they saw, witnesses being the police officers, and he did. So the fact that the weapon was mishandled and the evidence contaminated obviously means that there’s something going on, because had the prosecutor not done that, it’s possible that the actual perpetrator’s DNA would have still been found on the knife, but because it had been mishandled, right now the DNA, again, does not match Khaliifah, but it has proven the evidence has been mishandled. So that is why there such contention around the DNA evidence in this case.
Mansa Musa:
All right, talk about this here. What about the hair follicles? Did anything come out in terms of testing that against Khaliifah’s hair follicles?
Michelle Smith:
Yes, and none of the other evidence matched Khaliifah, the hair, the footprints, the fingerprints, there is no physical evidence in that home, in that murder scene, that matched Khaliifah. The only evidence they had was the fact that he was in possession of the victim’s laptop and that these two people said that he told them he did it. They didn’t see it happen. They weren’t there either, but they both said that he told.
And the person from jail, interestingly enough, he did not know that man. He had just been in jail with him for a few days up to a week, so the fact that you would even be in jail with someone and just confessing to them that you killed people, that doesn’t make any sense to me.
Mansa Musa:
But that’s a common phenomenon in prison. People, they sit around, and they look at the paper, and they read about somebody’s case and they use that to get out. They call the state’s attorney, state’s attorney, don’t even look and see whether or not it’s any validity to it.
But let’s talk about, excuse me, the current prosecutor. And the current prosecutor and them and the states representative saying they are saying that he should be released or he should definitely not be executed. Talk about that, talk about that right there.
Michelle Smith:
Sure. So in our state, in 2021, there was a law passed in Missouri. And that law says that the local prosecutor, which is the office that prosecuted a person, that local prosecutor has the right to bring forth a case, a motion to court, to ask the court to set aside conviction, and that happens when the attorneys for the person who was convicted brings evidence to the prosecutor and then he himself in his office reviews the evidence.
So it’s not that a prosecutor just brings any case, he actually has his own staff review the evidence, his investigators, he runs the testing, et cetera. And once he was done reviewing this case, he decided that, “Yes, this case is not something I would have brought to court if I had been in court at that time. Our office messed up, our office mishandled evidence, and our office convicted someone who we today believe, who is not guilty, who is innocent.”
And so because of all of those reasons, the prosecutor brought the motion to court, asked the judge to review it, and to vacate that conviction. But, there is another party in this matter, which is the state attorney, the Attorney General of Missouri. And so the Attorney General of Missouri has the right to challenge the local prosecutor’s assertions. And this has been done several times. Now in the past three times, it has been used since 2021, the person was exonerated and freed and none of those people were on death row. All three of those people had life sentences. One was prison 28 years, one was in prison 34, and one was in prison for 42 years, and all of them were black men. Each of those black men have been exonerated and released after decades incarcerated.
But in this particular case, when the prosecutor brought forth the case and asked for to be reviewed, the State Attorney General has tried to block him at every point, at every turn. They were going to take a Alford plea, which is basically a plea deal [inaudible 00:16:36] some evidence, but that still there is doubt in that conviction. And the judge was going to accept that Alford plea, and in exchange they were going to give a Khaliifah a life in prison sentence.
Now life in prison is still a conviction and incarceration, however, it would’ve saved his life. He would not be facing execution. But, the State Attorney General went to the Supreme Court that evening, asked them to throw out this plea deal and hold the hearing, and once that hearing was held, the judge then reviewed the evidence… And it came out yesterday, so the judgment came out yesterday and it said that basically the DNA evidence that again points to the prosecutor, meaning that it was contaminated, is not “clear and convincing.” There’s a very high bar, when we’re talking about innocence, there’s a very high bar and person has to meet and the judge does not feel that this case meets that high enough bar in order to vacate the conviction. So the judge denied the motion to vacate the conviction.
So at this point, again, Khaliifah is facing execution on September 24th. His attorneys as well as the local prosecutor are trying to figure out their next legal move in court. I’m not quite sure what that is, but of course they can go to the state Supreme Court, they can also go to the US Supreme Court, and so we anticipate them doing that, and I’m sure that they’re going to keep fighting to bring justice to this case, and to exonerate Khaliifah, and also stop his impending execution. But we are in [inaudible 00:18:20]
Mansa Musa:
I got you. This is literally like you say, the 11th hour, but also from my information is the family members came out and said… Took a position on Khaliifah. What was that?
Michelle Smith:
In these cases, the victim’s families don’t always agree with the prosecution, and I think that’s a fallacy that people assume so. But the victim’s family, Mrs. Gale’s family have stated publicly that they don’t believe in the death penalty.
Again, her husband is a doctor and I’m sure that him being a doctor, a person that is tasked with saving people’s lives, is what grounds his own ideology in this, but the family is not for the death penalty. Now the family believes that Khaliifah is guilty of the murder. They have stated that as well. They don’t believe he’s innocent. They believe he’s guilty, but they also don’t believe in death penalty. So they would be satisfied if he was just incarcerated. But I explain to people often that the prosecutor, they don’t always align with the family. The prosecutor is a political position, and the decisions that they make in the office are often politically motivated. It’s not always about the family.
I’ve seen cases where… There’s one case of a man who family, the victim’s family was his own family, because in his case, when he was 19, he killed a member of his family. I believe she was a great aunt who was an elderly person, and he was doing drugs, sadly, and he killed his great aunt trying to get money. But the victim’s family, his family are same family.
And that victim’s family went to the governor, I believe it was Texas, and went to the governor of Texas and told him, “We don’t want our loved one killed. We understand what he did. We are a family of faith. We are a family of forgiveness, and we want him here, and we believe that he’s a better person, and we don’t want to lose him.” And the state said, “we don’t care what you think” and executed him anyway.
So the prosecution is not always about the victim’s families, or the victim’s loved ones, or justice for the victim’s family, because in Khaliifah’s case, the victim’s family does not agree with the death penalty, however, the state is still pushing for Khaliifah to be executed. So it is not always what the victims want.
Mansa Musa:
We want to educate our audience on this point when they offer Khaliifah an Alford, because the Alford plea is a plea that’s saying that I’m innocent, it’s just that the circumstances, I can’t overcome these circumstances at this time. It’s not that they can’t be overcome, it’s just they can’t be overcome at this time. So this is a better course.
So given the Alford plea, he still would’ve been able to pursue his quest to be exonerated, which is really what this is about, an innocent man. Talk about an innocent man getting ready to be legally murdered. Talk about the state of Missouri and how they do the… Overwhelming numbers of blacks on death row, or is this generally that they go out, and they execute or they try to get the death penalty across the board, or is just systemically poor and poor people?
Michelle Smith:
Interestingly enough, when we talk about… Of course, racism is embedded in the capital punishment, death penalty system, it is the crutch of it is how it was done. There was a time where we were lynched.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Michelle Smith:
They made it legal and they made it state and they made it in the gas chamber, or an execution chair, but it’s still state-sanctioned murder. And since it is still embedded in racism, there is a little bit of difference. It’s not necessarily the race of the defendant, which that has a part, but statistically it’s the race of the victim.
Being a white female means that you’re three and a half times more likely to receive a death sentence. So if the victim is a white woman or a white female child, whoever the perpetrator is, nevermind [inaudible 00:22:33] whoever. But that goes to show you who’s valued in society. Because if Khaliifah’s victim was a black man or a black woman, he very likely would not be on death row right now. That’s just the reality of the situation.
So, racism does definitely play a part, who the victim is plays a huge part, but it is also who the defendant is as well. And in our particular state, because we are a state that held onto slavery, actually Missouri was a [inaudible 00:23:05] only state.
Mansa Musa:
Yes.
Michelle Smith:
So Missouri is the South. I tell people that often Missouri is the south, and when we look at it, we look at the lynchings in our state, and we can really overlay a map of the executions and they almost match. So places that did lynching, extrajudicial murders, now carries out the death penalty, capital punishment. It is definitely mostly black men, for the most part, but the overwhelming majority of people are poor. And that’s what we need to talk about, too.
People who are facing capital punishment, or lengthy sentences in prison are poor, don’t have access to the best legal help. In Khaliifah’s case, his attorneys, back at that time, his defense attorneys today, those two men are judges, and they came to court and they said, “Listen, we were ineffective because we had another death penalty case at the time, and we were stretched thin, we were busy, we had more than one capital punishment case, and we did not do everything that we could for Khaliifah because of that other case.” And they actually admitted that in court as well. So the representation for people, most of the time get public defenders, and they don’t have the robust representation. Everybody’s not OJ. Everybody cannot afford Johnnie Cochran and a great legal team.
Mansa Musa:
Dream team.
Michelle Smith:
Exactly. And so most poor people are facing these particular punishments because they don’t have access to their robust legal representation, and that’s the crux of it.
Even right now in our state, there are approximately 10 to 12 pending capital punishment cases, meaning they’re sitting in jail, waiting to go to trial, and they’ve been charged with murder and facing a death penalty. And guess what? All of those people right now are white men from rural Missouri. So they’re from small towns in Missouri, they’re all white men. And it is really an indictment, again, of our system. So when we talk about racism and the division and the biases, we truly need to understand that our system, our country, hates poor people overall.
Mansa Musa:
Criminalize poverty.
Michelle Smith:
[inaudible 00:25:16] tell you is, if you’re poor and you don’t have access to resources, or access to amazing litigation, et cetera, you are going to be victimized in this system.
Mansa Musa:
They criminalize poverty.
But talk… Look, before as we get ready to close out, talk about Khaliifa. I asked you earlier, I said, make the case why you think he’s innocent, and I’ll leave that up to our viewers based on the preponderance of information that you gave us, the facts of his case is in public record, but talk about Khaliifa, how is he doing and what kind of person is Khaliifa, for the benefit of our audience?
Michelle Smith:
So Khaliifah is again, his birth name was Marcellus Williams. He has been a very devout Muslim for many, many years and he took upon the Islamic name Khaliifah upon his shahada, which is that naming ceremony. He is also the Imam at the prison he’s in. So he is a person that is looked up to that is very admired. He guides the other Muslim men in that prison, and he’s always trying to make sure that he stays in alignment with Allah. So because of that, he keeps his faith right up front, and he is doing okay. We talked a few weeks ago and he honestly encourages me, because I’m not… Sadly, I don’t have the faith that he has. He’s always concerned asking me how I’m doing, telling me everything is going to be okay, because I’m a worrier, but he is very much that person that really stays calm, keeps other people calm around him, and has their perspective that everything is going to work out because he is such a faithful individual.
He’s also a father, a grandfather. He is very involved in his family, and he’s a poet. Khaliifah writes amazing poetry and we put together a collection of his poetry as well. He’s written poems about, one is called the Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine, and it is an amazing poem about just the atrocities that are happening to the Palestinian people. He’s written a poem about George Floyd and the issues of what happened in 2020. So he’s very in tune with what’s going on today, and he has written some amazing poetry. So he is a beautiful-spirited person. He is definitely someone that has so much to give to others, and we are truly fighting for his innocence and his life so that he can go on impacting people in a positive way.
Mansa Musa:
So tell our audience right now, what can they do, how they can support and try to help reverse this process that we know that going to take place unless we get some support and raise the voices of Khaliifa.
Michelle Smith:
So of course, his legal team are doing all they can in court and we appreciate that, but as far as the community, locally here in Missouri and nationwide, just amplify Khaliifah’s story in his case, talk to your community members, talk to your family, talk to your loved ones about the fact that death penalty does not solve anything, and actually killing innocent people should be something we as a society should not be doing.
We have a petition for Khaliifah. We also have a webpage, which is www.freeKhaliifah.org. His name is spelled K-H-A-L-I-I-F-A-H, and it has a toolkit where we have graphics, and we have information that you can share on social media. You can print also and share as well. We have a little email template that you can email our governor, especially if you live in Missouri, you can definitely utilize that. So we’re really asking people to learn and to amplify the case, amplify Khaliifah’s life and humanity, and we would love this to get as big as possible. Some people have made videos on TikTok and Instagram, and those are amazing as well, because those get a lot of views and really inspire other people to learn more, and so that’s truly what we’re looking to do, amplify Khaliifah’s case.
Next Tuesday the 17th, from six to nine P.M. we will be going live on Instagram, bringing on several people to talk about Khaliifah’s case and trying to do a social media push really just to amplify the case, again, and to amplify his life because a lot of people don’t know what’s happening, so we definitely want more people to understand what is going on and how it not only affects us in Missouri, it affects us nationwide because we should have a stop at killing innocent people. That definitely is not something we should be doing.
Mansa Musa:
Thank you. There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. We ask that you review this information about Marcellus Khaliifah Williams. We ask that you asked yourself if you was in this situation, would you want to get a fair trial? Would you want people to really look at the information and the evidence when you confronted with this information and this evidence? Ask yourself, would you, as a juror, if you knew all this as a juror, would you have found Khaliifah guilty of murder? Ask yourself if you as a juror, would not be able to discern when person have interest over humanity, where a person would take and sell somebody out for $5,000? Ask yourself what would you do?
We’re asking that you look at this information and follow what Michelle was saying as far as on the Instagram, on their webpage is very interactive, and make your voice known. Because if we continue to allow this country to execute people, legally with impunity, then as Angela Davis say, “If they come for me at night, they’ll come for you in the morning.” And this is them coming for us in the morning and we don’t raise the voice of Khaliifah. Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle Smith:
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Mansa Musa:
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