Missouri Supreme Court Blocks Attorney General’s Efforts to Prevent Innocence Hearing for Marcellus Williams

On July 26, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court denied Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s request to block an evidentiary hearing scheduled for August 21^st, 2024, where the St. Louis County Circuit Court is set to hear evidence of Marcellus Williams’ (pictured) innocence. The circuit court set the August 21^st hearing in response to a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction and death sentence filed by Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell in January 2024. In his motion, DA Bell wrote that the never-presented DNA evidence, in conjunction with additional evidence, including unreliable witness testimony, “is evidence that would tend to demonstrate Mr. Williams’ actual innocence.”

In response to the state Supreme Court denying AG Bailey’s writ of prohibition, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Mr. Williams, said that her team is “relieved that the Missouri Supreme Court has turned away AG Bailey’s attempt to prevent the circuit court from considering the compelling evidence of Marcellus Williams’ innocence. No one should stand in the way of this hearing, requested by the county prosecutor, aimed at ensuring Missouri does not execute an innocent man.” Mr. Williams is set to be executed on September 24, 2024, despite his scheduled evidentiary hearing and serious doubt of his involvement in the crime for which he was sentenced to death. Since 1973, 33 men have been exonerated and released from death row based on DNA evidence. In an op-ed from Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person to be exonerated by DNA evidence in a death penalty case in the US, he wrote that “the DNA evidence in [his] case saved [his] life and, if reviewed, could save [Mr.] Williams’ life, too. Everyone should want this hearing to go forward. No one in Missouri wants to see an innocent man executed in their name.”

The Missouri Attorney General’s office has a decades-long record of opposing relief in innocence cases. In June 2024, AG Bailey’s office opposed the release of Sandra Hemme, after a court declared she was innocent of the crime for which she spent 43 years behind bars. Ms. Hemme was released from prison in July 2024, after AG Bailey’s office fought for nearly a month to keep her incarcerated. On July 30, 2024, Christopher Dunn, who served 34 years behind bars, was released from prison after local prosecutors denied retrying him for a murder he did not commit. A week earlier, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser overturned Mr. Dunn’s conviction and ordered his release immediately, but the South Central Correctional Center, where Mr. Dunn was held, refused to cooperate with his release at the urging of AG Bailey. After emergency hearings and last-minute filings, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that AG Bailey does not have the authority to keep a prisoner incarcerated, but for Mr. Dunn to be released, the circuit court prosecutor must formally drop charges. Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore formally dropped charges against Mr. Dunn on July 30, and he was freed from prison.  

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 scene and the trial court judge refused to allow DNA testing of some collected evidence. At trial, prosecutors relied largely on the testimony of two witnesses who testimony contradicted physical evidence collected from the crime scene. In 2015, Mr. Williams was granted permission for DNA testing of the murder weapon, which revealed a male DNA profile inconsistent with that of Mr. Williams.