Missouri sets execution date for death row inmate Marcellus Williams, despite doubts over DNA evidence

Missouri has scheduled the execution of death row inmate Marcellus Williams, although he was never granted a hearing for a plea of ​​innocence that some authorities believe to be legitimate.

The 55-year-old was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2003 for the murder of Felicia Gayle at his home in University City, a St. Louis suburb, five years earlier, court documents show. Prosecutors alleged at the time that he broke into Gayle’s residence before stabbing her to death and leaving with a jacket that he used to hide the bloody shirt along with her purse and her husband’s laptop. Gayle was a social worker and previously a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was 42 years old when she was killed.

Williams’ girlfriend later testified that she discovered the stained shirt and items belonging to Gayle in the trunk of the car he drove to pick her up that day, and said that Williams confessed to murdering Gayle when she confronted him about it, so according to the records. . These documents also allege that Williams, while jailed on unrelated charges in St. Louis, confessed again to the murder during a conversation with his cellmate.

More recent developments in Williams’ case have cast doubt on his initial conviction. Hours before Missouri was set to execute him in 2017, former governor Eric Greitens ordered an investigation into the evidence originally used to convict him, which halted the execution process. Greitens said in his order that contemporaneous forensic testing revealed that DNA from the murder weapon did not match Williams, and noted that testing did not exist at the time of his criminal trial. The former governor convened a commission of inquiry, made up of retired judges, to examine Williams’ claim of innocence.

For reasons that have not been made clear, the board of inquiry did not reach a conclusion in its investigation, and current Missouri governor Mike Parson ordered the panel to dissolve in a move last summer that boosted the state’s plan to execute Williams. Then, in January of this year, St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Williams’ sentence entirely.

The motion referred a Missouri law allow a prosecutor to vacate or vacate a conviction “at any time if he or she has information that the person convicted may be innocent or may have been wrongly convicted.” Approved in 2021, the law gives prosecutors the legitimacy to request hearings in cases where they believe there is evidence of a wrongful conviction.

Bell pointed to the fact that in Williams’ case, “DNA evidence supporting the conclusion that Mr. Williams was not the individual who stabbed Ms. Gayle has never been considered by a court.” But on Tuesday the Missouri Supreme Court still set Williams’ execution date for September 24.

Justice Zel Fisher wrote in the court’s unanimous ruling that the “Missouri Constitution grants the governor exclusive constitutional authority to grant or deny clemency and Williams has no legal or due process right to the board of inquiry.” Fisher said the Missouri law on which Bell based his motion to vacate did not interfere with that authority.

The Midwest Innocence Project filed a lawsuit on Williams’ behalf last August after Parson dissolved the board of inquiry ordered by his predecessor. The organization, with Williams’ attorneys at the national Innocence Project, responded to the Missouri Supreme Court ruling in a statement to CBS News.

“The St. Louis County District Attorney has stated that he has clear and convincing evidence that Marcellus Williams is innocent. It is alarming that an execution date has been set despite this,” the statement read. “To date, no court has reviewed the DNA evidence proving that Mr. Williams was not the individual who wielded the murder weapon and committed this crime. However, the State has successfully sought an execution date, highlighting the emphasis of the system in finality over innocence.

The organization said it will continue to work with Williams’ attorneys to seek a hearing on Bell’s motion to vacate and ultimately seek the inmate’s exoneration.