By The Diary
22 Aug 2024, 01:32 AM EDT
Marcellus Williams, who has been in prison since the late 1990s on first-degree murder charges, entered a new no-contest plea in a deal calling for a revised sentence of life without parole to stop his execution scheduled for Sept. 24.
The development came as St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hinton was scheduled to oversee a hearing requested by prosecutor Wesley Bell seeking to overturn Williams’ first-degree murder conviction in the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle.
Bell had cited DNA testing that was not available at the time of the crime but that when the results were returned found that the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to someone else, but not Williams, The Associated Press reported.
Contaminated DNA due to manipulation
Matthew Jacober, an attorney for the St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office, said that even the most recently released DNA evidence found contamination due to the handling of the gun by a former deputy district attorney and investigator. The contaminated evidence made it impossible to prove that anyone else could have been the killer.
“Marcellus Williams is an innocent man and nothing agreed to today changes that fact,” Williams’ attorney, Tricia Bushnell, said in a statement. She said Gayle’s family supports overturning the death penalty and that the guilty plea “provides some reassurance” to the family.
Attorney General appeals to the Supreme Court
But the guilty plea does not guarantee that Williams will not be executed. Attorney General Andrew Bailey is appealing to the Missouri Supreme Court in his attempt to move forward with the execution, arguing that a circuit court does not have the authority to overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision that set the execution date.
Williams, 55, was hours away from execution in August 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens granted a stay after DNA testing that was not available at the time of the killing showed DNA on the knife matched someone else’s, not Williams’.
“Racial discrimination in jury selection”
“This previously unconsidered evidence, when combined with the relative paucity of other credible evidence supporting guilt, as well as additional considerations of ineffective assistance of counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection, casts inexorable doubt on Mr. Williams’ conviction and sentence,” Wesley Bell’s motion stated.
Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said that on Aug. 11, 1998, he walked into Lisha Gayle’s suburban St. Louis home, heard water running in the shower and found a large butcher knife.
When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. Williams was charged and sentenced to death.
With information from AP
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