Notices by The Intercept (theintercept@journa.host)

Israeli airstrikes have decimated entire residential buildings in and outside Beirut, killing at least 136 people in the past 24 hours. https://theintercept.com/2024/09/30/israel-arms-embargo-lebanon-progressives/

“The United States must end its complicity in this atrocity,” Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote in a statement announcing the legislation. https://theintercept.com/2024/09/30/israel-arms-embargo-lebanon-progressives/

Author Nathan Thrall’s recent book tells the story of one Palestinian family living under Israel occupation. https://theintercept.com/2024/07/03/intercepted-nathan-thrall-israel-palestine/

BREAKING: The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a stay of Marcellus Williams's execution, with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson dissenting.

Williams is scheduled to be executed at 6 PM CST.

The day after Gov. Parson dissolved the panel, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state's Supreme Court to set an execution date for Williams.

The Midwest Innocence Project sued to block the governor from disbanding the board, saying his order violated state statute. https://interc.pt/48XNNmb

Before Williams' first trial in 2001, the handle of the butcher's knife used in the murder had been analyzed for fingerprints, but none had been found; blood on the blade matched Picus.

In August, St. Louis County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Keith Larner testified in court that back then, he had concluded that there was no additional forensic testing that needed to be done on the murder weapon, so he repeatedly handled the weapon without using gloves. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf

While the MO Supreme Court considered the dispute between AG Bailey and the Midwest Innocence Project, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell asked the Missouri Circuit Court to consider evidence of Williams’s innocence and vacate his conviction.

“This never-before-considered evidence, when paired with the relative paucity of other, credible evidence supporting guilt … casts inexorable doubt on Mr. Williams’s conviction and sentence,” the motion read. https://interc.pt/42g2izG

Bell’s office struck a deal with Williams on August 21. The prosecutor would concede constitutional error and take the death penalty off the table if Williams agreed to enter a so-called Alford plea that let Williams acknowledge a strong case against him while maintaining his innocence; the plea would let him avoid the death penalty by accepting a life sentence. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf

According to St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, the state’s willful mishandling of the evidence before trial had violated Williams’s rights, meaning his conviction and death sentence must be overturned. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf

A new round of analysis confirmed that Williams’s genetic material was not on the knife, but it could not exclude either Larner or his investigator as the source of the unknown DNA.

Whatever DNA might have existed connecting the perpetrator to Picus’s murder was irretrievably lost — thanks to the prosecution’s handling of the evidence. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf

But AG Bailey’s office ran to the Missouri Supreme Court, arguing that the judge didn’t have the power to agree to such a deal and that Williams should face execution. The court sided with Bailey, ordering the judge to hold a hearing on Bell’s motion to vacate the conviction as originally planned. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf

On Sept. 12, the St. Louis County Circuit Court judge upheld Williams's murder conviction, ruling that the prosecutor who contaminated the evidence by handling it without wearing gloves had not acted in “bad faith,” but instead was merely following his normal procedure.

The ruling dismantled Williams’s latest attempt to prove his innocence and paved the way for his execution tonight. https://interc.pt/3ZkM3lt

Since being appointed to his post in 2023, Bailey has spent a considerable amount of time attempting to thwart state courts from exonerating the wrongly convicted — or even from considering their claims. https://interc.pt/4e0GPzY

Both the Missouri Supreme Court and Gov. Parson have refused to grant a stay of the execution, and now it's up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to allow Williams's execution by lethal injection tonight to proceed or not.

Make sure to follow Jordan Smith as she covers the latest developments as they happen tonight.

Missouri executed Marcellus Williams tonight around 6 PM.

"Tonight, we all bear witness to Missouri’s grotesque exercise of state power. Let it not be in vain. This should never happen, and we must not let it continue,” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, Williams’ attorney and executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said in a statement.

Marcellus Williams was sent to Missouri’s death row in 2001 for a murder he swore he did not commit.

Forensic testing of the knife used to murder Felicia Anne Gayle Picus revealed male DNA that did not belong to Williams, but he is scheduled to be executed tonight at 6 PM CST.

On the eve of Williams’s scheduled execution in 2017, then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens intervened, issuing an executive order that triggered a rarely used provision of Missouri law, empaneling a board to review the evidence, including DNA, that jurors never heard about at trial.

Gov. Mike Parson dissolved the panel before it could report its findings. https://interc.pt/48XNNmb

While Israel said it targeted Hezbollah’s weapons supplies, Lebanon’s health minister also said the strikes hit hospitals, medical centers, and ambulances. https://theintercept.com/2024/09/23/israel-bombs-lebanon-us-weapons/

"This is what happens when you flood a major transit system with a government-sanctioned, taxpayer-funded armed gang coated with official impunity and prone to violent escalation." https://theintercept.com/2024/09/16/brooklyn-subway-fare-shooting-police-violence/

“For months, we have urged Vice President Harris to shift her Gaza policy so we could mobilize voters in key states to save lives and our democracy,” Uncommitted said. https://theintercept.com/2024/09/19/uncommitted-kamala-harris-gaza/