Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are under fire for refusing to stop the execution of Missouri death row inmate Marcellus Williams, who died Tuesday night by lethal injection.

Williams was sentenced to death in 2001 for the murder of Felicia Gayle, who was found fatally stabbed in her St. Louis apartment in 1998. His lawyers had filed last-minute requests for a stay of his execution with the governor of Missouri and the state Supreme Court, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, but all three declined to intervene in the days leading up to Williams’ death.

The Supreme Court justices split 6-3 in their decision Tuesday, with liberal jurists Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson writing that they would have granted the request for a stay.

The St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office sought a stay of Williams’ execution over concerns about the trial’s jury pool. DNA evidence collected at the scene of Gayle’s murder also did not link Williams to the crime.

Gayle’s family members also requested that Williams’ sentence be reduced to life in prison, writing in a clemency petition that the family “defines closure as allowing Marcellus to live.” Missouri Gov. Mike Parson wrote in a statement Tuesday that Williams’ execution closes the chapter on a case that “has languished for decades and has victimized Ms. Gayle’s family over and over again.”

Several commentators have criticized the Supreme Court’s conservative majority for denying Williams’ request for a stay. American author John Pavlovitz, a former Christian youth pastor, wrote to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday night, “To hell with Supreme Court justices who have no respect for the lives of people of color.”

Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, also blamed the Supreme Court for Williams’ death. He wrote to X: “The state of Missouri killed a man tonight. And the Supreme Court of the United States sat by and did nothing.”

“The so-called ‘pro-life’ members of the Supreme Court have sentenced a man to death despite overwhelming evidence that exonerated him,” Charlotte Clymer, a U.S. Army veteran and activist, posted on X. “These people don’t care about life. They only care about control.”

Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, who earlier in the day called on the Supreme Court to intervene in Williams’ execution, accused her state and “Deadly Governor Mike Parson” in a statement Tuesday night of “willfully and unlawfully” executing an “innocent man.”

“The state of Missouri and our nation’s justice system failed Marcellus Williams, and as long as we retain the death penalty, we will continue to perpetuate this depravity where an innocent person can be killed in the name of justice,” Bush, a progressive, added.

Newsweek contacted the Supreme Court’s Office of Public Information for comment.

The Supreme Court has rarely granted stays of execution, although the justices did grant a last-minute reprieve in July for Ruben Gutierrez, a Texas death row inmate convicted of killing an elderly woman during a 1999 robbery. Gutierrez’s legal team argues that DNA testing would prove he was not involved in the killing. The stay was granted just 20 minutes before Gutierrez was set to be executed.

Williams was accompanied into the execution chamber Tuesday by Imam Jalahii Kacem, and the Associated Press reported that Williams’ son and two attorneys were present at his death. His last meal consisted of chicken wings and Tater Tots shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday. He died by lethal injection shortly after 6 p.m.

The Missouri Department of Corrections released a handwritten closing statement from Williams Newsweek on Tuesday, with the text: “All praise is due to Allah in every situation!!!”