Mo. Choose Critiques Doubtlessly Exonerating Proof Much less Than 1 Month Earlier than Execution Datetheinsiderinsight

• Marcellus Williams has been on Missouri’s loss of life row since 2001 however his protection staff and a few prosecutors agree he isn’t responsible of Felicia Gayle’s 1998 stabbing homicide 
• Doubtlessly exonerating DNA proof – obtainable for 7 years – has by no means been reviewed by a decide till now 
• Each Gov. Mike Parson and Legal professional Normal Andrew Bailey have labored to maintain Williams’s execution date regardless of potential proof of his innocence

The bloody fingerprints on the wall and footprints by her physique weren’t his. The DNA discovered on the knife and contained in the Missouri lady’s house didn’t match his. The hairs discovered clutched in her fingers didn’t belong to him. 

Each county prosecutors and his protection counsel agree that the person behind bars for greater than 20 years for the 1998 stabbing loss of life of newspaper reporter Felicia Gayle possible had nothing to do with it, in response to a motion to vacate his loss of life sentence filed by prosecutors and reviewed by PEOPLE.

However Marcellus Williams is slated for execution on Sept. 24, 2024, at 6 p.m.

The possibly exonerating DNA proof – reviewed by three prosecution consultants who agree that it does not going belong to Williams – first got here to mild seven years in the past.

However a Missouri decide heard that proof for the primary time on August 28 in a last-ditch effort by William’s attorneys to save lots of him from execution subsequent month.

St. Louis County prosecutors and protection attorneys every spoke for 2 hours, urging the decide to put aside Williams’s execution, whereas the Missouri Legal professional Normal’s Workplace argued to maneuver ahead with it. The decide requested ultimate filings by Sept. 4, per the St. Louis County Prosecuting Legal professional Workplace.

Gayle, a journalist on the St. Louis Put up-Dispatch, was discovered brutally murdered inside her gated group house in College Metropolis, Mo., on Aug. 11, 1998. 

Her husband, Dr. Daniel Picus, discovered her with a knife lodged in her neck and sporting solely a purple shirt, in response to prosecutors’ 63-page movement filed in January beneath a brand new Missouri legislation permitting the state to intervene in a previous conviction if the integrity of that conviction is questionable.

Investigators later decided that Gayle had been stabbed a minimum of 43 instances, dying from 16 wounds to her head, neck, chest and stomach. 

The killer – who took her purse and a laptop computer amongst different gadgets however left her wedding ceremony ring and jewellery – had used considered one of her personal kitchen knives in the course of the assault.

Over the course of the investigation, police famous bloody shoe prints close to the knife sheath within the kitchen and on the rug close to her physique. Bloody fingerprints ran alongside the wall and hairs had been collected from her fingers, t-shirt and the ground.

Two neighbors recalled that morning seeing a darkish coloured minivan pushed by a White man. (Williams is Black.)

However regardless of media consideration surrounding the girl’s loss of life, police made little progress within the investigation – till two informants got here ahead, naming Williams.

Williams, who struggled with drug habit, had been arrested on Aug. 31, 1998 for robbing a donut store. His girlfriend round that point, in addition to somebody he had been incarcerated with, gave inconsistent tales to investigators who however used these narratives to arrest Williams in 1999 and put him on trial two years later.

A jury of 11 White folks and 1 Black particular person convicted him in 2001 of first-degree homicide, first-degree housebreaking, armed prison motion, and theft.

The prosecutor had eliminated six certified Black potential jurors from the pool utilizing peremptory challenges, in response to the Innocence Challenge. 

In his movement to vacate the sentence, present Prosecuting Legal professional Wesley Bell referred to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Legal professional Workplace’s “historical past of excluding” Black jurors as “no secret” and stated the observe had violated Williams’s constitutional rights.

In 2015, the Missouri Supreme Court docket stayed an earlier execution date for Williams and appointed a particular grasp to evaluation DNA proof that in the end decided that the DNA on the homicide weapon didn’t belong to Williams, in response to prosecutors and the Innocence Challenge.

Two years later, that particular grasp – who didn’t make any findings on the take a look at outcomes – despatched the case again to the Missouri Supreme Court docket, which rescheduled Williams’s execution for Aug. 22, 2017 – with out contemplating the brand new proof. 

Simply hours earlier than his set execution, then-Governor Eric Greitens stayed the execution, appointing a Board of Inquiry – which in accordance with Missouri legislation was to concern a proper report following its evaluation – to look additional into the case.

As an alternative, in June 2023, Governor Mike Parson dissolved the board forward of any report or suggestion. 

Legal professional Normal Andrew Bailey shortly known as for a brand new execution date.

Williams sued the governor, claiming his constitutional rights had been violated with the dissolution of the board, in response to the Innocence Challenge. The governor went to the state supreme courtroom, which dismissed the lawsuit this June, and Williams’s execution date was set for Sept. 24.

Parson – who declined by way of his workplace to reply questions from PEOPLE, citing pending litigation – stated in a latest assertion that he was following “customary observe” and that his choices had been “not distinctive to Mr. Williams’ case.”

Then on Aug. 21, Williams’s protection discovered that prosecutors had inadvertently gotten their very own fingerprints on the knife, either side verify to PEOPLE, with Chris King of the St. Louis County Prosecuting Legal professional Workplace acknowledging that it “mirrored improper dealing with of proof.”

The 2 sides agreed upon an Alford plea which allowed the state to maintain its conviction whereas Williams, who was not admitting guilt, could be taken off loss of life row. 

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That very same day, Legal professional Normal Andrew Bailey filed a writ application, blocking the courtroom’s capacity to resentence Williams to life with out parole and main the circuit courtroom decide to schedule the Aug. 28 evidentiary listening to.

“It’s within the curiosity of each Missourian that the rule of legislation is fought for and upheld – each time, with out fail,” Bailey stated in a statement.

On the Aug. 28 listening to, Prosecuting Legal professional Bell advised the courtroom that his workplace had mishandled the homicide weapon and that the state had additionally destroyed bloody fingerprints on the crime scene and eliminated Black jurors based mostly solely on race – all constitutional errors that Bell stated undermined the conviction, in response to a press launch by the Innocence Challenge.

“Immediately, we noticed two totally different approaches to prosecution, one dedicated to serving justice, the opposite intent on profitable at any price,” the Innocence Challenge’s Bushnell stated in an announcement after the listening to.