US death row inmate to get life in prison after DNA testing weakens conviction

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) - A Missouri inmate convicted of fatally stabbing a woman in 1998 will avoid the death penalty and instead be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said on Wednesday, after DNA testing of the murder weapon did not match him.

Marcellus Williams, 55, who had been scheduled to be put to death next month, will enter what is known as an "Alford plea" to a first-degree murder charge on Thursday as part of a deal with prosecutors that vacates his original conviction.

The plea allows Williams to continue to maintain his innocence, as he has done since the murder, while forgoing a new trial and accepting the recommended sentence.

In an order, Judge Bruce Hilton in St. Louis County Circuit Court said that the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney's office conceded there were "constitutional errors" during the trial that "undermine confidence" in the verdict. He also noted that the family of the victim, Felicia "Lisha" Gayle, did not wish for Williams to be executed.

Gayle was stabbed 43 times in her suburban home, and Williams was convicted in 2001 largely on the testimony of two witnesses whom prosecutors have now described in court papers as "unreliable."

Prosecutors had initially concluded that DNA tests excluded Williams. Additional testing, however, found the lead investigator's DNA on the knife, which suggested the weapon had been mishandled and contaminated at the time but did not definitively exclude Williams.

Williams' attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, said in a statement that no reliable evidence has ever connected her client to the crime.

"Marcellus Williams is an innocent man, and nothing about today's plea agreement changes that fact," she said in a statement. "By agreeing to an Alford plea, the parties will bring a measure of finality to Felicia Gayle's family, while ensuring that Mr. Williams will remain alive as we continue to pursue new evidence to prove, once and for all, that he is innocent."

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey opposed the court's decision, arguing that the evidence used to convict Williams remained undisturbed. A spokesperson for the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney said the office expects Bailey to appeal Wednesday's decision.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Josie Kao)