Missouri Supreme Court blocks agreement to prevent execution of death row inmate who maintains innocence

By Dakin Andone, CNN

(CNN) — The Missouri Supreme Court has blocked a deal that would have resulted in death row inmate Marcellus Williams being re-sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday after new DNA tests shook his claim of innocence less than a month before his scheduled execution.

Instead, the state Supreme Court, in a preliminary injunction, ordered the St. Louis County District Court to set aside Wednesday's ruling, hold a previously scheduled evidentiary hearing and announce the results by Sept. 13 — or explain why that is not necessary. The lower court could seek an administrative stay of Williams' Sept. 24 execution date while the case is underway, the chief judge wrote.

The St. Louis County District Court judge then vacated the settlement order and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for Aug. 28, according to an order filed Thursday.

Williams has long insisted that he is not the murder victim of Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who was found stabbed to death in her home in the college town in 1998.

The verdict announced Wednesday sees Williams sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the Alford case, a plea that typically allows defendants to maintain their innocence while acknowledging that it is not in their best interest to go to trial given the evidence against them.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, whose office said it is appealing the settlement ruling, praised the state Supreme Court's decision in a statement Thursday.

“It is in the best interests of all Missourians that the rule of law is fought for and upheld – every time, without exception,” Bailey said. “I am glad that the Missouri Supreme Court has recognized this. We look forward to presenting evidence in a hearing, as we did yesterday.”

Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Williams, asked “who this decision serves or what justice it creates,” pointing out that the plea agreement came with the support of the prosecutor who prosecuted Williams in 2001 and the victim's family.

“We look forward to presenting the evidence supporting the district court’s decision at next week’s hearing.”

The key step toward Wednesday's agreement was the results of a new DNA test – a report from the Missouri Attorney General's Office was dated Monday, two days before the crucial hearing. Those tests showed that the evidence had been mishandled, complicating Williams' claim of innocence, the Associated Press reported.

The St. Louis district attorney's office, which filed a motion to overturn Williams' conviction in January, was scheduled to present DNA evidence at a court hearing Wednesday that three DNA experts said excluded Williams from carrying the knife used to kill Gayle.

However, the hearing did not begin as planned, and after several hours, District Attorney Wesley Bell's office announced the verdict based on a consent decree. Bailey's office had fought Bell's motion, indicating in court filings that Williams' execution should go ahead, and his office disagreed with Wednesday's ruling, the statement said.

The results of the DNA test indicated that the evidence would not exonerate Williams, Bailey said Wednesday, but they showed that the knife “was held by many actors, including police officers.” This refuted the claim by the inmate's lawyers that the DNA would match the real killer.

In court, special prosecutor Matthew Jacober, representing the St. Louis District Attorney's Office, acknowledged that the new DNA tests showed the gun had been mishandled by a former assistant district attorney and an investigator, the Associated Press reported, tainting evidence supporting Williams' claim of innocence and making it impossible to prove that anyone else was the perpetrator.

Rojo Bushnell had previously stated that Wednesday's verdict would have secured his life “while we continue to search for new evidence to prove his innocence once and for all.”

“The fact that there is DNA on the knife that matches that of members of the prosecution team proves that the State of Missouri violated important protocols in investigating this case, including the mishandling of crucial evidence,” she said. “But regardless of who touched the weapon between 1998 and the present and left DNA on it, there is no doubt that Marcellus Williams did not do it.”

A copy of the ruling said it came after a conference on Wednesday at 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 and the family's desire for finality.”

Bell, who defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Cori Bush in the Democratic primary for her congressional seat this month, filed the motion to overturn Williams' conviction in January, saying DNA evidence that allegedly could rule out Williams as Gayle's killer had never been tested by a court.

“This previously unaddressed evidence, coupled with the relative paucity of other credible evidence of guilt and additional considerations of inadequate legal representation and racial discrimination in jury selection, raises inescapable doubt about Mr. Williams' conviction and sentence,” the motion states.

Bell's office also raised other issues surrounding Williams' conviction. In its motion, it said that the testimony of two unreliable informants was responsible for his conviction. They had legal problems of their own and were also rewarded with a $10,000 bounty.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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