Ignoring Credible Innocence Claims, St. Louis County Circuit Court Denies Prosecutor’s Motion to Vacate Marcellus Williams’ Conviction and Death Sentence

On September 12, 2024, the Missouri Circuit Court for St. Louis County denied Prosecuting Attorney (PA) Wesley Bell’s motion to vacate Marcellus Williams’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for the 1998 mur­der of Felicia Gayle. Judge Bruce F. Hilton denied PA Bell’s motion, writ­ing that ​“there is no basis for a court to find that [Mr.] Williams is inno­cent, and no court has made such a find­ing.” Judge Hilton added that the court was not pre­sent­ed with evi­dence show­ing that the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion mis­han­dled the mur­der weapon in bad faith, call­ing PA Bell’s motion ​“noth­ing more than repack­aged argu­ments.” Following Judge Hilton’s rul­ing, PA Bell said he is ​“immense­ly dis­ap­point­ed” with the court’s deci­sion because there are ​“detailed and well-doc­u­ment­ed con­cerns regard­ing the integri­ty” of Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion. PA Bell added that he, ​“along with oth­er who believe that the evi­dence in this case does not war­rant exe­cu­tion, will con­tin­ue to work to pre­vent that outcome.”

In January 2024, PA Bell filed his motion after his office reviewed Mr. Williams’ case and new DNA test­ing con­duct­ed on evi­dence from the crime scene exclud­ed Mr. Williams as a source of DNA. An evi­den­tiary hear­ing was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for August 21, 2024, but pros­e­cu­tors from PA Bell’s office announced that the mur­der weapon con­tained DNA of mem­bers of the tri­al pros­e­cu­tion team, no longer sup­port­ing their ini­tial con­clu­sions. Mr. Williams agreed to enter an Alford plea in exchange for a life sen­tence with­out parole, which would have ensured that he would not be exe­cut­ed. Hours after the agree­ment was accept­ed, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state Supreme Court to block the agree­ment. The Missouri Supreme Court set aside the plea agree­ment and ordered the low­er court to pro­ceed with the evi­den­tiary hear­ing. During the August 28, 2024, evi­den­tiary hear­ing, PA Bell con­ced­ed that the pri­or admin­is­tra­tion com­mit­ted uncon­sti­tu­tion­al errors con­tribut­ing to Mr. Williams’ unre­li­able con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, includ­ing the mis­han­dling of the mur­der weapon which could have exon­er­at­ed Mr. Williams. 

Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attor­ney for Mr. Williams, said that ​“the deci­sion of a pros­e­cu­tor to move to vacate a mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence is not done light­ly. Prosecuting Attorney Bell filed a motion because there is over­whelm­ing evi­dence that Marcellus Williams’ tri­al was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly unfair, includ­ing rev­e­la­tions that the State con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed the most crit­i­cal evi­dence in the case — the mur­der weapon.” A 2021 Missouri law allows pros­e­cu­tors to chal­lenge past con­vic­tions if they believe that indi­vid­ual is inno­cent or wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. This law has result­ed in the release of three oth­er men, who wrong­ful­ly spent decades in prison.

Ms. Rojo Bushnell said that her team ​“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.” In late August 2024, a spokesper­son from Gov. Parson’s office said that he is open to dis­cussing clemen­cy with Marcellus Williams and his legal team.

Mr. Williams is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 24, 2024.