In Marcellus Williams’ clemency package, his mother describes him as the only mistake she ever made. His father also left him unwanted. Now, facing execution for a murder he says he didn’t commit, the 55-year-old Williams has a legion of supporters behind him. No one wants him to die — not the jurors who decided his fate years ago, not the district attorney’s office, not even the victim’s family. The only entity pushing for his execution, it seems, is the state of Missouri.

“The State Attorney’s Office, the office that secured the conviction, that secured the death penalty, is now saying there was a mistake in the case,” said Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney with Williams’ Innocence Project. “They’ve admitted there was a mistake, both in terms of racial discrimination, jury selection, the contamination of evidence. But the state is still trying to execute him. That’s a very disturbing phenomenon for all of us. What’s the point?”

Williams was initially convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2003 for the 1998 murder of social worker and reporter Felicia Gayle in the St. Louis suburbs. Prosecutors alleged that Williams robbed Gayle and then stabbed her to death, hiding her purse and her husband’s laptop in the trunk of his car. His girlfriend testified that she discovered the incriminating evidence and that Williams confessed to the killing to her. The prosecution also alleged that Williams confessed to the murder to his cellmate Henry Cole while he was in prison on unrelated charges. The defense, however, argued that Cole and the girlfriend were criminals who were after the $10,000 reward. Regardless, Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in August 2017.

Hours before the scheduled execution, then-Gov. Eric Greitens (R) called for a halt to the trial in light of newly discovered DNA tests on the murder weapon, which suggested that an unidentified man was in fact the killer — not Williams. (There was no other physical evidence linking him to the crime, the defense said.) “In order to carry out the death penalty, the people of Missouri must have confidence in the verdict of guilt,” Greitens said in the statement. Greitens subsequently formed an investigative committee to review the new information.

However, in 2023, current Governor Mike Parson (R) — who did not comment on Rolling Stone — dissolved that commission. “This commission was established almost six years ago and it is time to move on,” he said. “We can delay and delay for another six years, delay justice, leave a victim’s family in limbo and not resolve anything. This administration will not do that. By rescinding the order, the process can continue within the justice system and once the legal process has been exhausted, everyone will have certainty.” It is currently unknown what, if anything, that commission found. Representatives of Williams’ Innocence Project say its work is not yet complete. Regardless, Williams was given a new execution date of September 24.

Williams’ team continued to fight for him, even after it was determined that the knife in question had been mishandled and DNA evidence was therefore inconclusive. So prosecutors and the defense reached a compromise at an Aug. 21 hearing, deciding that Williams would enter a plea to first-degree murder in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Associated Press reported. Both the judge and Gayle’s family signed off, but at the urging of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Parson appointee, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the deal and ordered an evidentiary hearing in late August. “They call the evidence in this case weak. It was overwhelming,” Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said at the time. He did not return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.

On September 12, the same judge affirmed Williams’ death sentence, writing: “Every claim of error Williams has asserted on direct appeal, post-conviction review, and habeas review has been rejected by the Missouri courts. There is no basis for any court to find that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a finding. Williams is guilty of first-degree murder and is sentenced to death.”

The fight continues, however. The St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office filed an appeal Monday night, while the governor — who had ended the stay of Williams’ execution, citing “a victim’s family in limbo” — received a request for clemency. Rojo Bushnell says that while Gayle’s family isn’t sure Williams is innocent, they don’t want him executed. (They declined to Rolling Stone.) It is a misconception that most victims want those who harmed them – or their family members – dead. The Atlantic Ocean surveyed 10,000 such people for a 2023 report that found that “victims are generally no tougher on crime than non-victims; they prefer rehabilitation over harsh justice, even though they have first-hand experience with crime and the criminal justice system.”

Even jurors reversed their earlier decision in the clemency motion. “After considering this new DNA evidence, it was something I would have considered in the guilt phase and it might have made a difference to the jury,” the foreman said. An alternate juror offered his opinion: “After reviewing this information, I am troubled that none of this was presented at trial and the jury never had a chance to consider it. . . . I strongly believe that if this information had been provided to the jury, it would have made a difference in the verdict and sentence.”

Attorneys also asked the federal court to reconsider a previously denied appeal that alleged Williams’ jury was racially uneven. They wrote in their filing that the state used most of its peremptory exclusions to block six of the seven potential jurors from being black. The jury ultimately consisted of 11 white jurors and one black juror, the attorneys wrote in a Tuesday filing. On Wednesday, Williams’ attorneys also filed a petition calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and stay his execution.

“The execution of an innocent person is a tragic and irreversible failure of the justice system,” Williams’ lawyers said. Rolling Stone in a statement. “As a society, clemency exists to ensure that even when the justice system fails, our elected leaders will not. When the life of an innocent person is at stake, our elected leaders must honor their clemency obligations and protect the public’s trust in our justice system by carefully considering all evidence, old and new. But Mr. Williams’ chance at clemency was taken away from him, so we turned to the Supreme Court for their intervention.”

Williams is one of five men scheduled to be executed next week — and if he does die on the 24th, he will be the 14th man put to death in the U.S. this year. His possible execution comes at a crucial time for the death penalty in America — an election year. Former President Donald Trump has been a strong supporter of executions; in a previous Rolling Stone report, a former White House official alleged that the current Republican nominee fantasized about killing members of gangs and drug cartels: “Fucking kill them all,” he would say. “An eye for an eye.” “They should be exterminated, not imprisoned,” he once said.

Trump is also a strong supporter of the firing squad, which, along with the electric chair, is now considered an acceptable form of capital punishment in the US. This is largely because some pharmaceutical companies refuse to supply the drugs needed for lethal injection. This is partly because this method has the highest rate of botched executions.

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris — once a critic of the death penalty — has appeared silent on the subject, even after President Joe Biden pledged in 2020 to halt federal executions and introduce legislation to abolish the death penalty at the state level. This year’s Democratic Party platform, for the first time since 2004, does not include any mention of the death penalty. The campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In the meantime, Williams is coping as best he can as he waits for the governor to stop his death or escort him to the chamber — or for the Supreme Court to stop it. “He’s done other things in the past that he’s not proud of,” Rojo Bushnell says. “But who he is today is a kind person who cares about people, who wants to help people be the best versions of themselves. He’s just such a great reminder that we get to decide. We have the ability to be who we want to be.”