The Missouri Supreme Court has blocked an agreement that would have resentenced death row inmate Marcellus Williams to life without parole after new testing of DNA evidence complicated his innocence claim, reported CNN.
A St. Louis County Circuit Court judge has now set
the agreement aside and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for August 28, court
records show. The lower court may seek an administrative stay of Williams’
September 24 execution date while the proceedings unfold, the chief justice
wrote.
The Missouri Supreme Court’s decision caps a
whirlwind 24 hours in the case that has pitted Wesley Bell, a local
prosecutor running
for Congress as a Democrat, against state Attorney General Andrew
Bailey, a Republican
seeking reelection.
Williams, 55, has long maintained he did not murder
Felicia Gayle, a one-time reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found
stabbed to death in her University City home in 1998. He was convicted in 2001
of first-degree murder, burglary and robbery, among other charges, and
sentenced to death.
Twenty-three years after his conviction, Williams’
innocence claim is championed by attorneys for the Innocence Project and the Midwest Innocence
Project.
In January, the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s
Office, led by Bell, filed a motion to vacate Williams’ conviction, saying DNA
evidence that could purportedly exclude Williams as the killer had never been
reviewed by a court. Prosecutors were expected to present DNA evidence in court
Wednesday that they say would exclude Williams as the person who wielded the
knife used in the murder. The motion cited the analysis by three DNA experts.
However, the results of new DNA testing showed the
evidence had been mishandled, complicating Williams’ innocence claim, the Associated Press reported.
The key hearing Wednesday did not get underway as
scheduled, and after several hours, Bell’s office announced a consent judgment,
an agreement between Williams and the prosecutor’s office. The deal dictated
Williams receive a life sentence after entering a so-called Alford plea of
guilty to first-degree murder. An Alford plea generally allows a defendant to
maintain their innocence while acknowledging it is not in their interest to go
to trial given the evidence against them.
A copy of the judgment said it was reached after a
conference Wednesday in which a representative of Gayle’s family “expressed to
the Court the family’s desire that the death penalty not be carried out in this
case, as well as the family’s desire for finality.” Gayle’s widower declined to
comment on Thursday.
The Missouri attorney general had fought Bell’s
motion and opposed Wednesday’s agreement, saying in a statement new DNA test
results indicated the evidence would not exonerate Williams.
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