Missouri Supreme Court Blocks Marcellus Williams from Entering Plea to Avoid Execution After State Reveals Mishandled Evidence

On August 21, 2024, Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 24, 2024, agreed to enter an Alford plea in exchange for a sen­tence of life with­out parole. This agree­ment would have ensured that Mr. Williams, who has always main­tained his inno­cence in the 1998 mur­der of Felicia Gayle, would not be exe­cut­ed. But hours after Judge Bruce F. Hilton accept­ed the plea agree­ment, Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the Missouri Supreme Court to block the deal, claim­ing that Judge Hilton did not have the author­i­ty to resen­tence Mr. Williams. In response, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the low­er court to set aside the plea agree­ment and move for­ward with the sched­uled evi­den­tiary hear­ing. Judge Hilton has now resched­uled it for August 28, 2024.

In January 2024, Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ death sen­tence after DNA test­ing exclud­ed him as the source of DNA on the mur­der weapon. A 2021 Missouri law allows pros­e­cu­tors to chal­lenge past con­vic­tions if they believe the indi­vid­ual is inno­cent or wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. Including Mr. Williams’ case, this law has been used six times, with vary­ing degrees of suc­cess. AG Bailey has con­sis­tent­ly opposed any effort by Mr. Williams to appeal his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The Missouri Attorney General’s office has a decades-long his­to­ry of oppos­ing relief in oth­er inno­cence cas­es as well. In 2021 and 2023, respec­tive­ly, Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson were exon­er­at­ed despite the AG’s efforts to pre­vent their release. 

Mr. Williams’ plea agree­ment was reached as both par­ties were sched­uled to begin an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on DA Bell’s motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. In con­nec­tion with the announce­ment of the plea deal, how­ev­er, pros­e­cu­tors unex­pect­ed­ly announced that the mur­der weapon con­tained the DNA of mem­bers of the tri­al pros­e­cu­tion team. Consistent with his asser­tion of inno­cence, the mur­der weapon does not show any DNA from Mr. Williams, but now con­firms that the crime scene evi­dence was mis­han­dled by pros­e­cu­tors. No phys­i­cal or foren­sic evi­dence has ever con­nect­ed Mr. Williams to the crime scene. 

A new analy­sis of the mur­der weapon found that DNA present was con­sis­tent with that of an inves­ti­ga­tor and a pros­e­cu­tor involved in the orig­i­nal tri­al. Matthew Jacober, with Mr. Bell’s office, told the court that the new­ly revealed DNA evi­dence, which was instru­men­tal to Mr. Bell’s motion to vacate, ​“did not ful­ly sup­port our ini­tial con­clu­sions.” Mr. Jacober told the court that Mr. Bell’s office ​“deeply regrets its fail­ure” to prop­er­ly pre­serve the evidence.

Representatives of Mr. Bell’s office deter­mined that the new DNA find­ings weak­ened Mr. Williams’ inno­cence claim, though the case has many oth­er seri­ous errors. His office pro­posed that Mr. Williams enter an Alfordplea, which would have per­mit­ted Mr. Williams to main­tain his inno­cence and avoid exe­cu­tion. After speak­ing with Daniel Picus, Ms. Gayle’s hus­band, who is opposed to exe­cut­ing Mr. Williams, Judge Hilton deter­mined that the plea agree­ment is ​“a prop­er rem­e­dy” to the case. AG Bailey dis­agree­ment with this rul­ing result­ed in the Missouri Supreme Court’s order reset­ting the evi­den­tiary hear­ing. The low­er court may seek a stay of exe­cu­tion for Mr. Williams while the low­er court proceedings continue.