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.