Missouri Attorney General Opposes Opportunity for Marcellus Williams to Establish His Innocence Before Execution Date

On July 18, 2024, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state Supreme Court to block a scheduled evidentiary hearing for Marcellus Williams and deny him the opportunity to establish his innocence before his scheduled execution on September 24, 2024. The Circuit Court of St. Louis County scheduled the August 21^st hearing to assess the “clear and convincing” evidence of Mr. Williams’ actual innocence that prompted St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to file a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction and death sentence. At the time DA Bell filed this motion, AG Bailey indicated his office would file a motion in opposition but waited four months to do so. Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Mr. Williams, believes that “instead of trying to prevent the circuit court from considering the DNA evidence that exonerates Mr. Williams, the Attorney General should join us in this truth-seeking process in Mr. Williams’ case.”

In a motion filed in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County in January 2024, DA Bell determined that the results of DNA testing, which have never been considered by a court, “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’ conviction and sentence.” AG Bailey’s office has argued that the court should dismiss Mr. Williams’ innocence claims and proceed with his scheduled execution. The Missouri Attorney General’s office has previously said that innocence is not enough to prevent an execution. In a 2003 oral argument at the Missouri Supreme Court, Justice Laura Denvir Stith asked then-Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung if he was suggesting that “even if [the court] find[s] Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?” In response, AG Jung said “that is correct your, honor.” Ultimately the court ruled in favor of Mr. Amrine who was later exonerated after 17 years on death row. 

The Missouri Attorney General’s office has a decades-long history of opposing relief in innocence cases, even when those requests are made by local prosecutors attempting to overturn wrongful convictions. In 2021 and 2023, respectively, Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson were exonerated despite the AG’s efforts to prevent their exoneration and release.

Mr. Williams was sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 killing of a local newspaper reporter, Felicia Gayle, but has maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration. No physical evidence tied Mr. Williams to the crime and the trial court judge refused to allow DNA testing of some of the crime scene evidence. At trial, prosecutors relied largely on the testimony of two witnesses whose testimony contradicted physical evidence collected from the crime scene. In 2015, Mr. Williams was finally granted permission for DNA testing of the murder weapon, which revealed a male DNA profile inconsistent with that of Mr. Williams.