Missouri Supreme Court Sets Execution Date for Marcellus Williams Despite County Prosecutor’s Pending Motion for Innocence Hearing

On June 4, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September 24, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), despite seri­ous doubts that he was not involved in the mur­der for which he is incar­cer­at­ed. The announce­ment came just hours after the state Supreme Court ruled that Governor Mike Parson did not vio­late any rules when he dis­solved a board of inquiry estab­lished in June 2023 by his pre­de­ces­sor, Eric Greitens, to inves­ti­gate Mr. William’s claim of inno­cence. Judge Zel Fisher wrote for the Court’s unan­i­mous opin­ion hold­ing that the ​“Missouri Constitution vests the gov­er­nor with exclu­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty to grant or deny clemen­cy and [Mr.] Williams has no statu­to­ry or due process right to the board of inquiry process.” In August 2023, attor­neys with The Midwest Innocence Project, on behalf of Mr. Williams, filed a suit argu­ing that Gov. Parson did not have the author­i­ty to dis­solve the board, as its mem­bers had not issued their rec­om­men­da­tions. The day after the dis­so­lu­tion of the inquiry board, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state Supreme Court to set an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Williams.

In January 2024, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney (DA) Wesley Bell filed a motion in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, seek­ing to vacate Mr. Williams’ death sen­tence pur­suant to a 2021 Missouri law that allows pros­e­cu­tors to inter­vene in cas­es when there is evi­dence sug­gest­ing inno­cence. In his motion to the Court, DA Bell not­ed that ​“this nev­er before con­sid­ered evi­dence, 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.” DA Bell has request­ed the Court to sched­ule a hear­ing to exam­ine the DNA evi­dence and oth­er flaws in the state’s case against Mr. Williams.

Mr. Williams was sen­tenced to death for the 1998 killing of local news­pa­per reporter Felicia Gayle but has always main­tained his inno­cence. There is no phys­i­cal evi­dence tying Mr. Williams to the crime scene and for many years, the tri­al court refused to allow DNA test­ing of some of the evi­dence that was col­lect­ed by inves­ti­ga­tors. 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. Despite the poten­tial sig­nif­i­cance of this test­ing, the Court refused to allow Mr. Williams to present it dur­ing post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings and ulti­mate­ly sched­uled an exe­cu­tion for August 2017. Just hours ahead of Mr. Williams’ sched­uled exe­cu­tion, then-Gov. Greitens stayed the exe­cu­tion through exec­u­tive order and empan­eled a board of five for­mer judges to inves­ti­gate Mr. Williams’ case.

At Mr. Williams’ tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion relied large­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of two indi­vid­u­als: a jail­house infor­mant and Mr. Williams’ for­mer girl­friend. Both wit­ness­es were fac­ing unre­lat­ed crim­i­nal charges and stood to ben­e­fit from tes­ti­fy­ing for the state and against Mr. Williams. Their tes­ti­mo­ny shift­ed through­out the course of ques­tion­ing and often con­tra­dict­ed the phys­i­cal evi­dence recov­ered from the crime scene. In addi­tion to the nev­er-pre­sent­ed DNA evi­dence, as well as evi­dence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion, DA Bell believes that it is his job to ​“cor­rect this man­i­fest injus­tice by seek­ing a hear­ing on the new­found evi­dence and the integri­ty of Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion.” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attor­ney with The Midwest Innocence Project, said that her office will con­tin­ue its fight to prove Mr. Williams’ inno­cence. ​“We look for­ward to pre­sent­ing the evi­dence of his inno­cence in court along­side St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, who has filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion. This injus­tice can still be rights,” said Ms. Bushnell.