Missouri Supreme Court blocks agreement that would have halted execution

The Missouri Supreme Court has blocked an agreement that would have spared the life of death row inmate Marcellus Williams and instead ordered a hearing to proceed on Williams' innocence claim, with just a little over a month to go before his scheduled execution.

The ruling late Wednesday came hours after St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hinton approved a plan allowing Williams to enter a new no-contest plea to first-degree murder in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle. Though Williams' lawyers said he still maintained he was innocent, the plea acknowledged evidence was sufficient for a conviction.

Williams would have been sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday. Instead, the scheduled Sept. 24 execution is still on, pending a hearing before Hinton on Williams' innocence claim.

That hearing had originally been scheduled to begin Wednesday. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell had asked the judge to vacate Williams' murder conviction based on DNA testing that found other DNA — but not that of Williams — on the knife used to kill Gayle.

But a new DNA test report released this week showed that handling of the murder weapon decades ago by a former assistant prosecutor and a former investigator contaminated the evidence so much that it was of no value to Williams' case. That finding prompted prosecutors to reach the agreement with Williams that Hilton signed off on.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey immediately appealed, arguing that a circuit court lacked authority to override a capital murder sentence.

The Missouri Supreme Court agreed, ordering that Hilton "set aside said consent order and judgment and file notice with this Court that you will take action ... including holding the evidentiary hearing previously scheduled and anticipated."

Bailey, in a statement on Thursday, said people too often "forget about all of the evidence that was used to convict the defendant — the evidence the jury relied on — and the victims. It is in the interest of every Missourian that the rule of law is fought for and upheld."

Messages were left with the St. Louis County prosecutor's office and attorneys for Williams.

The courtroom Wednesday was packed with people who included several others who have been exonerated of crimes. For hours, lawyers met behind closed doors. Finally, Matthew Jacober, a special prosecutor for the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, announced that the contaminated evidence made it impossible to show that someone else may have been the killer.

"The murder weapon was handled without proper procedures in place," Jacober said. The improper handling occurred several years before Bell took office.

That finding prompted the St. Louis County prosecutors to reach an consent judgment allowing Williams to enter an Alford plea. He also agreed not to appeal.

"Marcellus Williams is an innocent man, and nothing about today's plea agreement changes that fact," Williams' attorney, Tricia Bushnell, said in a statement after the hearing. She noted that Gayle's family supported setting aside the death penalty, and the plea "brings a measure of finality" to the family.

Bailey said in a statement Wednesday that "the defense created a false narrative of innocence in order to get a convicted murderer off of death row and fulfill their political ends." Bell defeated incumbent Cori Bush in Missouri's 1st Congressional District Democratic primary on Aug. 6 and will be heavily favored in the November general election.

Williams, who is Black, was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury consisting of 11 white people and one Black person. He was hours away from execution in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after DNA testing unavailable at the time of the killing showed that DNA on the knife matched someone else, not Williams.

That evidence prompted Bell to reexamine the case.

A 2021 Missouri law allows prosecuting attorneys to file a motion seeking to vacate a conviction they believe was unjust. Three other men — Christopher Dunn last month, Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson — have been freed after decades in prison after prosecutors successfully challenged their convictions.

Prosecutors at Williams' original trial said he broke into Gayle's suburban St. Louis home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband's laptop were stolen. Gayle, who was White, was a social worker who previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams' girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or two later. CBS News previously reported that police found Gayle's clothing and her husband's computer in Williams' car.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a St. Louis cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.

Williams' attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted felons out for a $10,000 reward.