Tennessee man facing charges after high-speed pursuit, drugs, possession of firearm in Nacogdoches County [Video]

Published: Aug. 28, 2024 at 6:23 PM CDT

An attorney for a Missouri man facing execution argued Monday that the state Supreme Court should halt the lethal injection because a trial attorney prevented a Black man who he thought looked similar to the defendant from serving on the jury.The arguments on behalf of Marcellus Williams came one day before he is scheduled to be executed for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle in the St. Louis suburb of University City.Williams, 55, has asserted his innocence. But his attorney did not pursue that claim Monday before the states highest court, instead focusing on alleged procedural errors in jury selection and the prosecutions alleged mishandling of the murder weapon.The state Supreme Court should correct an injustice either by declaring that a prosecutor wrongly excluded a potential juror for racial reasons or by sending the case back to a lower court to determine that issue, attorney Jonathan Potts argued on behalf of Williams. Either action could effectively cancel Tuesdays scheduled execution.Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Baileys office has argued for the execution to proceed. The trial prosecutor has denied that he had racial motivations in removing potential jurors and did nothing improper based on procedures at the time by touching the murder weapon without gloves after it already had been tested by a crime lab, Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said in arguments to the state Supreme Court.Attorneys for Williams also have an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, a clemency request before Republican Gov. Mike Parson focuses largely on how Gayles relatives want the sentence commuted to life in prison without parole. The NAACP also is urging Parson, a Republican, to stop the execution of Williams.The execution would be the third in Missouri this year and the 100th since the state resumed executions in 1989.Williams was less than a week away from execution in January 2015 when the state Supreme Court called it off, allowing time for his attorneys to pursue additional DNA testing.He was just hours away from being executed in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after reviewing DNA evidence that found no trace of Williams DNA on the knife used in the killing. Greitens appointed a panel of retired judges to examine the case, but that panel never reached a conclusion.Questions about DNA evidence also led Democratic St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that the DNA evidence was spoiled because members of the prosecutors office touched the knife without gloves before the original trial.With the DNA evidence unavailable, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutors office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole.Judge Bruce Hilton signed off on the agreement, as did Gayles family. But at Baileys urging, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place Aug. 28.Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that his arguments all had been previously rejected.There is no basis for a court to find that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a finding, Hilton wrote.On Tuesday, Williams attorney argued that circumstances are different, because the trial prosecutor had not previously been questioned in court by Williams attorney about the reason he removed a specific juror.The prosecutor in the 2001 first-degree murder case, Keith Larner, testified at the August hearing that the trial jury was fair, even though it included just one Black member on the panel. Larner said he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams. He didnt explain why he felt that mattered.The clemency petition from the Midwest Innocence Project focuses heavily on how Gayles relatives want the sentence commuted to life without parole. Parson, a former sheriff, has been in office for 11 executions, and has never granted clemency.Prosecutors at Williams original trial said he broke into Gayles home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. Gayle, a social worker and former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husbands laptop computer were stolen.Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.Williams attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward.

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Former President Donald Trump says that, if he wins a second term, he wants to make IVF treatment free for women, but did not detail how he would fund his plan or precisely how it would work.I'm announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment, he said at an event in Michigan. Because we want more babies, to put it nicely."IVF treatments are notoriously expensive, and can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single round. Many women require multiple rounds and there is no guarantee of success.The announcement comes as Trump has been under intense criticism from Democrats for his role in appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion in the country. The decision has led to a wave of restrictions across Republican-led states, including proposals that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception. IVF relies on the creation of multiple embryos, some of which may be destroyed.Abortion is expected to be a major motivator for Democrats and women this November, and was a dominant theme of the party's national convention last week, including Vice President Kamala Harris' speech as she accepted her party's nomination.In response, Trump has been trying to present himself as more moderate on the issue, going as far as to declare himself very strong on womens reproductive rights.In an interview with NBC ahead of the event, Trump also suggested that he would vote in favor of repealing Floridas six-week abortion ban, which limits the procedure before many women even know they are pregnant.Trump, in the interview, did not explicitly say how he plans to vote on the ballot measure this fall. But he repeated his past criticism that the measure, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, is too restrictive.I think the six weeks is too short. It has to be more time," he said. I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.Trump had previously called DeSantis decision to sign the bill a terrible mistake.Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement after the rally Thursday that Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida known as Amendment 4 and that he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.His comments nonetheless drew immediate reaction from those who oppose abortion rights, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who said she had spoken with Trump after his speech.He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position, she said, adding that, anyone who believes in drawing a different line still must vote against Amendment 4, unless they dont want a line at all.In his speech, Trump also said that, if he wins, families will be able to deduct expenses for caring for newborns from their taxes.Were pro-family, he said.Trump has held multiple conflicting positions on abortion over the years. After briefly considering backing a potential 15-week ban on the procedure nationwide, he announced in April that regulating abortion should be left to the states.In the months since, he has repeatedly taken credit for his role in overturning Roe and called it a beautiful thing to watch as states set their own restrictions.Trump, however, has also said he does not support a national abortion ban, and over the weekend, his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said he would veto such legislation if it landed on his desk.Donald Trumps view is that we want the individual states and their individual cultures and their unique political sensibilities to make these decisions because we dont want to have a nonstop federal conflict over this issue," Vance said on NBCs Meet the Press."Trump first came out in favor of IVF in February after the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law, briefly pausing treatment and sparking national backlash.Trump has since claimed the Republican party is a leader on the issue, even as at least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. That kind of legislation, which asserts that life begins at conception, could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.IVF can costs tens of thousands of dollars for medical appointments, medication and surgery, and is not covered by many health insurance plans.Trump has in general been opposed to various kinds of federal mandates, and originally ran against the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare which included popular provisions like protections for people with preexisting health conditions.In a statement, Harris campaign said Trump shouldn't be believed.Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters arent stupid," said Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Sarafina Chitika. Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and womens freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country. There is only one candidate in this race who trusts women and will protect our freedom to make our own health care decisions: Vice President Kamala Harris.Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILYs List, which works to elect women who support abortion rights, called Trump's proposal disingenuous and unserious.He knows how unpopular the GOPs attacks on fertility treatments are, and his comments are a desperate ploy to distract from the fact that he and his party have gutted reproductive freedom," added Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju.Trump made the IVF announcement during a campaign swing to Michigan and Wisconsin, states he is intensely focused on recapturing after he won them in 2016 but narrowly lost both states in 2020.Trump's first stop was Alro Steel in Potterville, Michigan, near the state capital of Lansing, where he railed against the Biden administration over inflation.Kamala has made middle class life unaffordable and unlivable and Im going to make America affordable again," he charged.Later, Trump traveled to La Crosse, Wisconsin, for a town hall moderated by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who endorsed the GOP nominee earlier this week.Gabbard opened the town hall by talking about her own IVF journey, giving herself injections in airport bathrooms and the heartbreak of failed embryo transfers. While the treatments ultimately didn't work for her, she applauded Trump's proposal.I cant tell you how life-changing that would be for so many families," she said.It was his first visit to the state since the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which ended just days before Biden dropped out of the race and began after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which Trump will visit again Friday, are part of the so-called blue wall bloc of northern industrial states that Democrats carried for two decades before Trump won them in 2016.___Beaumont reported from La Crosse, Wisconsin. Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.