Prosecutor’s push to vacate conviction of death row inmate Marcellus Williams denied in Missouri

(CNN) — A Missouri judge on Thursday rejected an effort by the St. Louis prosecutor to vacate the conviction of Marcellus Williams, a death row inmate who claims he’s innocent of the murder for which he’s scheduled to be executed this month.

The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, led by Wesley Bell, had argued in a January motion DNA testing of the murder weapon could exclude Williams as the killer of Felicia Gayle, who was found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.

But the argument fell apart last month in the face of new DNA testing that revealed the murder weapon had been mishandled, contaminating the evidence meant to exonerate Williams and complicating his quest to prove his innocence.

“There is no basis for a court to find that Williams is innocent,” state Judge Bruce F. Hilton wrote Thursday in his judgment, “and no court has made such a finding. Williams is guilty of first-degree murder, and has been sentenced to death.”

The case raises the specter of a potentially innocent person being put to death, an inherent risk of capital punishment. At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 have thereafter been exonerated, four of them in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Prosecutors had filed the motion because “overwhelming evidence” shows Williams’ trial had been unfair, said one of his attorneys, Tricia Rojo Bushnell.

“We will continue pursuing every possible option to prevent Mr. Williams’ wrongful execution. There is still time for the courts or Governor Parson to ensure that Missouri does not commit the irreparable injustice of executing an innocent person,” the lawyer said in a statement.

CNN also reached out Thursday to the Democratic prosecuting attorney’s office and the office of Republican state Attorney General Andrew Bailey for comment.

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

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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