DNA evidence has suggested for years that Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams was wrongly convicted of murdering Felicia Gayle, yet the final weeks leading up to the September 24 execution date have seen a series of twists and turns.

That evidence was enough for Gayle’s family and the former Missouri attorney general in 2017. In January, the office of St. Louis District Attorney Wesley Bell reversed his position on the 2000 murder conviction and filed a motion to halt the execution.

Williams, a 54-year-old grandfather known as Khaliifah, has maintained his innocence since 1998.

Yet Attorney General Andrew Bailey was said to have been tireless in his efforts to have Williams executed. Arguments were filed throughout the weekend in the Missouri Supreme Court appealing a circuit judge’s denied motion to throw out Williams’ 1998 murder conviction. On Monday, Williams’ attorneys argued that the prosecutor’s recent admission that he had dismissed black jurors should be enough to overturn the conviction. The attorney general’s office denies those claims.

Hours after Monday’s hearing, the justices unanimously upheld Williams’ conviction, allowing his execution to proceed despite a pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. A request for clemency to the governor was denied by day’s end.

Advocates also say the case underscores how justice plays out in the Midwest. The way the government incarcerates, criminalizes, surveils, prosecutes and uses the death penalty against Black and poor people — it’s the South, said Michelle Smith, co-founder of the nonprofit Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.

“We are very much rooted in that mentality of dehumanizing black, poor, brown people,” Smith said. “I think Missouri is a place where … our government, courts, etc., are very deeply rooted in punishment and retribution, and not in real justice,” Smith said.

Read more: Acquitted of murder decades ago, Virginia man sentenced to life in prison fights for his freedom

More than half of Missouri’s 55 wrongful convictions involved exonerated black people, including three people sentenced to death, according to the National Registry of Exonerations database, which has tracked wrongful convictions since 1989. Over the past 10 years, death penalty cases in the Show Me State have “decreased dramatically,” with “one unanimous jury decision” to sentence someone to death, according to Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Since last year, Bailey has worked hard to block the release of released prisoners, in some cases even advocating for their execution despite clear evidence of wrongful convictions.

But Williams is used to this, say supporters like Smith, who contacted Williams three years ago as part of her lobbying efforts.

This is not the first time the Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date for Williams.

“He’s been through this before — three times,” Smith said, referring to the first stay of execution granted in August 2017 by then-Governor Eric Greitens.

DNA evidence and jailhouse informant testimony are two factors that contribute to the evidence of a wrongful conviction. Nationwide, 848 people have been wrongfully convicted, in part because of a jailhouse informant and post-conviction DNA testing, according to the National Registry of Exonerations database. More than half of those exonerated are black.

“What makes it so hard for them to get this man to prove his innocence? It’s beyond me,” Sabrina Smith, an exonerated death row inmate from Mississippi and no relation to Michelle Smith, said in an interview with Capital B.

“They know they have no evidence, but they’re still willing to kill someone. That’s the part that really pisses me off, honestly, because the United States is in such a rush to kill its own citizens, and it doesn’t make sense.”

How can an innocent man still be executed?

Williams’ conviction was based on the testimony of two witnesses—a jailhouse informant and an ex-girlfriend—who each had separate, unrelated criminal convictions. Testifying for the prosecution could therefore provide an advantage, such as collecting a reward.

During a hearing in Williams’ case on August 28, the prosecutor revealed that he had mishandled the murder weapon, leaving his own DNA behind. He also admitted to removing black people from the jury for unintended reasons, such as thinking Williams was related to a potential juror because they looked similar.

St. Louis County District Court Judge Bruce F. Hilton ruled on September 12 that he would not overturn Williams’ conviction for the 1998 stabbing death of Gayle.

Madeline Sieren, a spokeswoman for Bailey’s office, said they stand by the conviction based on Hilton’s ruling.

“Marcellus Williams has never been proven innocent. A judge issued a ruling last week affirming his conviction,” Sieren wrote in an email to Capital B.

In a unanimous written decision, Missouri Supreme Court Justice Zel M. Fischer agreed with Hilton. “There is no credible evidence of actual innocence or any evidence of constitutional error that undermines confidence in the original judgment,” Fischer wrote.

Hilton’s ruling effectively ignored DNA evidence tested in 2016 that showed Williams was not the source of the DNA on the murder weapon or the bloody footprints found in Gayle’s St. Louis home.

In 2017, Williams’ execution was stayed because an advisory board created by Greitens was tasked with reexamining his case in light of newly discovered DNA evidence. In 2021, Missouri law was changed to give elected prosecutors the authority to review past convictions when allegations of misconduct arise.

Before this change, a 2016 legal doctrine established a standard in Missouri that allowed only death row inmates to be released, wrongfully leaving individuals like Christopher Dunn, sentenced to life without parole, unjustly imprisoned. After 34 years, Dunn was finally released in July.

In June 2023, Republican Governor Mike Parson dismissed the advisory board before it could report its findings or recommend to the governor that Williams be pardoned.

Bailey, a Republican who was appointed by Parson in 2023 and is running for a full term this year, set a second execution date.

“It’s all political,” said Sabrina Smith, the former exonerated woman and communications assistant for Witness to Innocence.

Earlier this year, Bell’s office joined with the Midwest Innocence Project, which represents Williams, to file a motion to vacate his 24-year-old conviction. National civil rights organizations including the NAACP have started an online petition urging Parson to intervene.

“There are detailed and well-documented concerns about the integrity of Mr. Williams’ conviction,” Bell said in a Sept. 12 statement after Hilton’s decision. “The Gayle family has said that while they want this case to end, they do not want the death penalty to be pursued against Mr. Williams.

“I continue to echo their sentiments. I, along with others who believe the evidence in this case does not justify an execution, will continue to work to prevent that outcome.”

The execution is scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m. local time.

“I’m concerned, but Khalifa isn’t,” said Michelle Smith.

During his time in prison, Williams became an imam and mentor to other inmates.

“Sometimes he calls me and asks if I’m okay,” Michelle Smith said with a giggle of the Ferguson resident. “That’s the type of person he is.”

Before Williams was incarcerated, he was the father of Marcellus Williams Jr., who was still in elementary school when his father went to prison. Despite the challenges of parenting behind bars, Williams has done his best to fulfill his responsibilities as a father to his son. Although Marcellus Jr. grew up without his father’s physical presence, their shared faith strengthened their bond, allowing Marcellus Jr. to pass their name on to his son.

“And because he’s a very religious person — he’s a very devout Muslim,” Michelle Smith said of the legal challenges Williams faced while on death row with 11 other people. “His faith has certainly gotten him through all these years.”