How prosecutors like the Missouri Attorney General are trying to uphold miscarriages of justice

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On Wednesday, Marcellus Williams will finally have a hearing to answer his claims of innocence. The 55-year-old death row inmate was convicted in 1998 of murdering Felicia Gayle during a robbery at her home in a St. Louis suburb. This comes just in time for Williams, who is scheduled to be executed in Missouri in September.

It's not the first time he's faced such a deadline. In 2017, Williams was just hours away from execution when the governor granted him a reprieve so a panel could review his claims of innocence. That included DNA testing that wasn't available at the time of the crime. According to Williams' lawyers, the tests ruled out Williams as the source of the DNA found on the murder weapon. Last year, a new governor disbanded the panel without releasing its findings.

A lot has changed between 2017 and 2023. In 2021, Missouri lawmakers passed a law allowing local prosecutors to petition to overturn convictions of people they believe are innocent. Longtime St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch — who firmly believed in Williams' guilt — was also replaced by Wesley Bell, who ordered a review of the case and was troubled by what he found. Bell cited “clear and convincing evidence” of Williams' innocence in a motion to overturn the conviction, a move made possible by the 2021 law.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey will argue against Williams' release at Wednesday's hearing, something he has done plenty of this summer. He also fought St. Louis District Attorney Gabe Gore in the innocence case of Chris Dunn, who served 34 years in prison after being convicted of a 1990 St. Louis murder. The two eyewitnesses who linked him to the crime – both of whom were under 15 at the time – have since recanted their testimony.

Similar to the Williams case, Gore filed a motion to overturn Dunn's conviction under the 2021 state law. Judge Jason Sengheiser agreed with Gore's view of the case earlier this summer, concluding that “in light of the new evidence, no juror acting reasonably would have voted for Dunn's guilt” and ordered Dunn's release.

Dunn was trying to leave prison late last month when Bailey blocked his release. As Dunn's wife put it to The Washington Post, “He was literally 50 feet from freedom.” Dunn had to wait another week until the state Supreme Court ruled that Bailey did not have the authority to detain him.

Bailey also fought this summer to keep Sandra Hemme in prison after the courts overturned her murder conviction. She had previously served 43 years to life in prison. Aside from a confession she made while heavily drugged and in a “malleable mental state,” there was no evidence linking Hemme to the crime, according to the judge who reviewed and overturned her conviction.

Bailey argued that Hemme should remain in prison to serve two prison sentences she received while incarcerated, including a 10-year sentence for attacking a prison employee with a razor blade in 1996. The state Supreme Court rejected that argument.

Legal experts have expressed surprise and dismay at how aggressively Bailey has fought against wrongful convictions and claims of innocence. In several cases, he has charged himself and other state officials with contempt of court for keeping people in custody whom a judge had ordered released. But it is not uncommon for prosecutors to take a stubborn stance in the face of claims of innocence. In a 2015 study of wrongful convictions, Jon Gould and Richard Leo found that police and prosecutors were the biggest opponents of acquittals.

A similar scenario is currently playing out in Erie County, New York. Last summer, a judge overturned Brian Scott Lorenz's 1993 murder conviction. Prosecutors have managed to keep him in prison – where he has been for 30 years – while they appeal the verdict.

An analysis of death row acquittals conducted this week by the Death Penalty Information Center found that wrongful convictions typically involve several reasons, including abuse of authority, false witness identification, false confessions and false or misleading forensic evidence.

In Texas, a law passed in 2013 was intended to help provide remedies for wrongful convictions based on poor forensic evidence. But the law, dubbed the “junk science law,” has not resulted in a single new trial of a death row inmate since it was passed, and defense attorneys such as the nonprofit Texas Defender Service say it is failing to achieve its intended purpose.

Lawyers for Robert Roberson — who my colleague Maurice Chammah wrote about last year — say his case is the perfect test of the law. Roberson was convicted in 2003 of the death of his two-year-old daughter, who died of “shaken baby syndrome,” a condition that has been the subject of medical and legal research ever since.

Roberson's execution is scheduled for October.