An appeal to the court and a request for clemency seek to stay the execution…

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The St. Louis County district attorney’s office will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court a judge’s decision upholding the conviction and death sentence of Marcellus Williams, who is scheduled to be executed in a week.

The notice of appeal filed Monday evening did not include any details on the basis of the appeal.

Meanwhile, Williams’ attorneys have submitted a clemency request to Gov. Mike Parson that highlights how the murder victim’s relatives oppose the execution.

Williams, 55, is scheduled to be executed by injection Sept. 24 for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle at her home in University City, Missouri. It would be the third execution in Missouri this year and the 14th nationwide.

St. Louis County Democratic Prosecutor Wesley Bell cited questions about DNA evidence on the murder weapon in requesting a hearing to challenge Williams’ guilt. Bell said the evidence indicated someone else’s DNA was on the butcher knife used to kill Gayle, but not Williams’.

But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new tests showed that DNA evidence had been altered because members of the prosecutor’s office had handled the knife without gloves before the original trial in 2001.

With DNA evidence unavailable, attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project working on Williams’ behalf reached a compromise with the district attorney’s office: Williams would again plead no contest to first-degree murder in exchange for another life sentence without parole.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed the agreement, as did Gayle’s family. But at the request of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the deal and ordered Hilton to hold an evidentiary hearing.

On September 12, Hilton ruled that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand.

“Every claim of error made by Williams on his direct appeal, post-conviction review, and habeas corpus review has been rejected by the Missouri courts,” Hilton wrote. “There is no basis for any court to conclude that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a conclusion.”

The Midwest Innocence Project provided The Associated Press with a copy of the clemency petition asking Parson to spare Williams’ life. Parson, a Republican and former county sheriff, was in office during 11 executions and has never granted a clemency.

The petition highlights how Gayle’s loved ones want the sentence commuted to life in prison without parole.

“The family considers that the end of the story is to allow Marcellus to live,” the petition reads. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

A Parson spokesman said in an email Tuesday that attorneys from the governor’s office have met with Williams’ legal team and that Parson will announce a decision later, typically at least a day before the scheduled execution.

At the August hearing, Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said that in addition to the DNA evidence, other elements pointed to his guilt.

“They called the evidence in this case weak. It was overwhelming,” Spillane said.

Hayley Bedard, a spokeswoman for the Death Penalty Information Center, said there have been no verified cases of an innocent person being executed in the United States since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1972, but there have been nearly two dozen people executed “despite strong and credible allegations of innocence.”

Prosecutors in Williams’ original trial said he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to cover up blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he was wearing a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was imprisoned on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole had both been convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward.

Williams has been on the verge of execution before. In August 2017, hours before his scheduled death, then-Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after reviewing the same DNA evidence that had motivated Bell’s attempt to overturn the conviction.

A petition on change.org signed by 525,000 people calls for the execution to be stopped.