Hey, everybody. This is Isaac, and on today's special Friday edition, the first premium paywalled

Friday edition podcast ever, we are going to be talking about the death penalty. A quick warning that today's edition of

Tangle includes graphic descriptions of killings, sexual assault and executions. It may not

be suitable for some listeners, and if you have children with you, I suggest probably not exposing

them to the content that we're about to share.

On September 24, Marcellus Williams was executed by lethal injection in Missouri.

Williams was first convicted for the murder of Felicia Gay in 2001.

Gay was a newspaper reporter found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.

The evidence of Williams' guilt was found convincing enough to convict him of murder

and to withstand multiple legal challenges.

Missouri's governor, in defending his decision not to halt the execution, said that no jury

or judge has ever found Williams' claims of innocence credible,

and further delaying closure would just re-traumatize the victim's family. However, before Williams

was executed questions about his case had caused an uproar and incited demands that his execution

be postponed or halted. Williams' attorneys claim new expert testimony about the contamination of the

murder weapon prior to trial, as well as bias in the jury pool selection, could prove to be

exonerating. In January, the county prosecutor filed a motion to vacate the case in consideration

of that evidence. The victim's family had also asked that Williams be spared from death,

instead preferring that he be in prison for life without parole. But the Supreme Court denied

his appeal for a stay, and the 55-year-old was executed. The case has reignited the debate about

capital punishment, as has the recent execution of Alan Miller, whom witnesses said struggled against

his restraints and gas for air while being killed with nitrogen gas in late September.

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