A county prosecutor in Missouri says he is “immensely disappointed” that a circuit judge has denied his petition to vacate the conviction of a man on death row, who is set to be executed later this month and who he believes may be innocent.
The Thursday, Sept. 12 order and judgment is the latest in Marcellus Williams’ years-long legal battle following his murder conviction in connection with the 1998 stabbing of St. Louis Post-Dispatchjournalist Felicia Gayle.
Williams is slated for execution on Sept. 24.
In a statement following the decision, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell noted the “detailed and well-documented concerns regarding the integrity” of the case.
“I believe that those who are convicted of committing crimes should be brought to justice,” he said. “And, for something as consequential as the death penalty, the evidence must prove the defendant to be guilty without a shadow of a doubt.”
He said the decision to move forward with the execution goes against Gayle’s family’s own wishes.
Marcellus Williams in mugshots taken in 2014 and 2023 during his more than 20-year incarceration.
Missouri Department of Corrections via AP; Missouri Department of Corrections
At a hearing Aug. 28, St. Louis County prosecutors and Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Innocence Project introduced DNA evidence which had been available for seven years but never heard by a court. At the hearing, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office argued for his execution.
In the county prosecutor’s motion to vacate, which was filed in January and led to the August hearing, Bell outlined key factors in the case, among them: bloody fingerprints and footprints, as well as hairs clutched in Gayle’s hands that did not match Williams’.
County prosecutors, who noted in the filing that Williams had ineffective counsel and that prosecutors peremptorily struck multiple Black people from the jury based on race, have also acknowledged what Chris King of the prosecutor’s office called in an email to PEOPLE “improper handling of evidence.”
DNA on the knife may have belonged to the lead prosecutor and an investigator on the case, supporting the allegation of mishandled evidence, per a DNA report and expert testimony referenced in the judge’s 24-page order and judgment reviewed by PEOPLE.
That evidence was provided to a Board of Inquiry in 2017 but never before ruled upon.
Last year, Governor Mike Parsons dissolved the board before they published their findings.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey – whose office did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment – soon after called for the new execution date.
Judge Bruce F. Hilton said in his order that such DNA evidence did not rule Williams out as the killer, since a crime scene investigator testified that the killer likely wore gloves.
Hilton further noted that he believed the former lead prosecutor on the case had “a good faith basis and reasons for handling the knife without gloves,” which led to his DNA getting on the murder weapon because he did not understand trace DNA in 2001.
The judge also said he was unconvinced of Williams’ claim of “actual innocence” in the first-degree murder charge and characterized the work of Williams’ lead defense lawyer, Joseph L. Green, who is now an associate circuit judge, as “exemplary.”
Green testified in August that he believes Williams “did not get our best,” per a transcription of his testimony quoted in Hilton’s decision.
The Innocence Project confirms they have filed a pending clemency petition.
“We will continue pursuing every possible option to prevent Mr. Williams’ wrongful execution,” Bushnell said in a statement. “There is still time for the courts or Governor Parson to ensure that Missouri does not commit the irreparable injustice of executing an innocent person.”
In an email , Johnathan Shiflett of the governor’s office said that following “standard practice” for a death row case he would consider clemency “typically at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled execution date.”
Shiflett further noted that Parson “has not said Mr. Williams should or should not be executed – the Courts, in following state law, decide that.”
