Missouri Supreme Court blocks agreement that would stop execution of death row inmate who claims innocence

(CNN) — The Missouri Supreme Court has blocked an agreement that would have resentenced death row inmate Marcellus Williams to life without parole after new testing of DNA evidence complicated his innocence claim.

A St. Louis County Circuit Court judge has now set the agreement aside and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for August 28, court records show. The lower court may seek an administrative stay of Williams’ September 24 execution date while the proceedings unfold, the chief justice wrote.

The Missouri Supreme Court’s decision caps a whirlwind 24 hours in the case that has pitted Wesley Bell, a local prosecutor running for Congress as a Democrat, against state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican seeking reelection.

Williams, 55, has long maintained he did not murder Felicia Gayle, a one-time reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found stabbed to death in her University City home in 1998. He was convicted in 2001 of first-degree murder, burglary and robbery, among other charges, and sentenced to death.

Twenty-three years after his conviction, Williams’ innocence claim is championed by attorneys for the Innocence Project and the Midwest Innocence Project.

In January, the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, led by Bell, filed a motion to vacate Williams’ conviction, saying DNA evidence that could purportedly exclude Williams as the killer had never been reviewed by a court. Prosecutors were expected to present DNA evidence in court Wednesday that they say would exclude Williams as the person who wielded the knife used in the murder. The motion cited the analysis by three DNA experts.

However, the results of new DNA testing showed the evidence had been mishandled, complicating Williams’ innocence claim, the Associated Press reported.

The key hearing Wednesday did not get underway as scheduled, and after several hours, Bell’s office announced a consent judgment, an agreement between Williams and the prosecutor’s office. The deal dictated Williams receive a life sentence after entering a so-called Alford plea of guilty to first-degree murder. An Alford plea generally allows a defendant to maintain their innocence while acknowledging it is not in their interest to go to trial given the evidence against them.

A copy of the judgment said it was reached after a conference Wednesday in which a representative of Gayle’s family “expressed to the Court the family’s desire that the death penalty not be carried out in this case, as well as the family’s desire for finality.” Gayle’s widower declined to comment on Thursday.

The Missouri attorney general had fought Bell’s motion and opposed Wednesday’s agreement, saying in a statement new DNA test results indicated the evidence would not exonerate Williams.

Instead, the results showed the knife had “been handled by many actors, including law enforcement,” the attorney general’s office said, disputing claims by the inmate’s advocates the DNA would match the true killer.

In court, Special Prosecutor Matthew Jacober, representing the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, acknowledged the new DNA testing showed the weapon had been mishandled by a former assistant prosecutor and an investigator, the Associated Press reported, contaminating the evidence that was supposed to support Williams’ innocence claim and making it impossible to prove someone else was the perpetrator.

AG praises decision, while Williams’ attorneys maintain his innocence

The whiplash of the sudden consent judgment followed by a state court decision blocking it led to a range of reactions from the parties involved.

Bailey, whose office appealed the consent judgment, praised the state Supreme Court’s intervention in a statement Thursday.

“It is in the interest of every Missourian that the rule of law is fought for and upheld – every time, without fail,” Bailey said. “I am glad the Missouri Supreme Court recognized that. We look forward to putting on evidence in a hearing like we were prepared to do yesterday.”

Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Williams and executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, questioned “who this decision serves or what justice it provides.”

“After careful consideration of the applicable law and facts, the circuit court accepted the consent judgment overturning Marcellus Williams’ conviction in exchange for Mr. Williams’ Alford plea and a subsequent sentence to life without parole,” she said in a statement. “This agreement was made with the support of the very office that prosecuted Mr. Williams and secured his death sentence — and who now concedes constitutional error, and with the support of the victim’s family.”

“We look forward to presenting the evidence that supports the circuit court’s decision at the hearing next week,” Rojo Bushnell said.

The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office reiterated its attorneys “still have concerns about the integrity of the conviction of Marcellus Williams as expressed in our motion that requested this hearing, particularly given that his conviction led to the irrevocable punishment of death.”

On Wednesday, Rojo Bushnell said the presence of law enforcement’s DNA on the weapon “proves the State of Missouri disregarded critical protocols in the investigation of this case, including mishandling pivotal evidence.”

“But regardless of who may have touched the weapon between 1998 and today and deposited DNA on it, there is no doubt that Marcellus Williams did not do so,” she said.

She indicated Wednesday’s agreement would have kept Williams alive while his attorneys continue the fight to prove his innocence.

“Marcellus Williams is an innocent man, and nothing about today’s plea agreement changes that fact,” she said.

Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Williams’ Alford plea was the result of “an impossible choice: with an execution date in just over a month, he could take a chance on a legal process that has never given him a fair shake and hope that things turn out differently – or he could take the deal that would save his life and bring the victim’s family the closure they sought.”

“Anyone would take the deal,” she told CNN.

Bell, who bested incumbent US Rep. Cori Bush in the Democratic primary for her congressional seat this month, filed the motion to vacate Williams’ conviction in January, citing DNA evidence.

“This never-before-considered evidence, when paired with the relative paucity of other, credible evidence supporting guilt, as well as additional considerations of ineffective assistance of counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection, casts inexorable doubt on Mr. Williams’s conviction and sentence,” the motion says.

Bell’s office had raised other issues with Williams’ conviction, claiming in the motion he was convicted on the testimony of two unreliable informants who were facing their own legal troubles and were further incentivized by $10,000 in reward money.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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