A judge on Thursday refused to overturn the conviction and sentence of Marcellus Williamsa convicted Missouri inmate scheduled to be executed later this month. Williams’ case has drawn national attention as he faces the death penalty for the 1998 stabbing death of a woman, despite Doubts over DNA evidence on knife used in the attack and long-standing questions remain about whether his initial trial was fair.
“All of Williams’ claims of error on his direct appeal, post-conviction review, and habeas corpus review have been rejected by the Missouri courts,” St. Louis County Judge Bruce Hilton wrote. “There is no basis for any court to conclude that Williams is innocent, and no court has made such a conclusion. Williams is guilty of first-degree murder and has been sentenced to death.”
Williams’ attorneys, the St. Louis County district attorney’s office and the Missouri attorney general’s office did not respond to messages left Thursday seeking comment. Williams’ attorneys are expected to seek clemency from Republican Gov. Mike Parson and could appeal.
The latest decision came after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in August. blocked an agreement The court could have spared Williams’ life but instead called a hearing to consider his plea of innocence. Williams, now 55, has since his conviction maintained his innocence in the murder of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who was found stabbed to death in her home in August 1998. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Sept. 24.
Missouri Department of Corrections via AP
Last month, Hilton presided over an evidentiary hearing challenging Williams’ guilt, after he approved a plan that allowed him to plead guilty to first-degree murder. The inmate’s attorneys at the time said he maintained his innocence, but that the plea acknowledged there was enough evidence for a conviction.
In January, St. Louis County Democratic District Attorney Wesley Bell cited questions about DNA evidence on the murder weapon in requesting a hearing to consider overturning Williams’ conviction. Bell said the evidence indicated someone else’s DNA was on the butcher knife used to kill Gayle, and he asked the judge to overturn Williams’ murder conviction based on that testing.
Bell filed the lawsuit under a 2021 Missouri law that allows prosecutors to ask a court to review a conviction they believe is unjust. That law and the setting of an execution date left Williams facing the prospect of having his conviction overturned and being released, or having it upheld and facing imminent execution.
Despite Bell’s request, the Missouri Supreme Court in June set an execution date for September 24. An initial hearing date had been set for August on Bell’s request, regarding questions about DNA evidence, but just before it was to take place, a new report revealed that the DNA evidence had been contaminated because officials in the St. Louis County District Attorney’s Office had handled the knife without gloves before the original trial in 2001.
With the DNA evidence spoiled, Williams’ attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project reached a compromise with the district attorney’s office: Williams would again plead no contest to first-degree murder in exchange for another life sentence without parole.
Hilton signed the agreement, as did Gayle’s family. But the Missouri attorney general’s office did not.
At the request of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the deal and ordered Hilton to proceed with the evidentiary hearing on August 28.
Williams’ lawyer, Jonathan Potts, said during the hearing that the mishandling of the murder weapon had been devastating for Williams because it had “destroyed his last, best chance” of proving his innocence.
Jim Salter/AP
Hilton, in his decision, agreed.
“In light of this report, (Williams) cannot demonstrate that the genetic material present on the knife handle can provide a basis for a ‘clear and convincing demonstration’ of Williams’ innocence,” Hilton wrote.
Deputy Attorney General Michael Spillane said other evidence pointed to his guilt.
“They called the evidence in this case weak. It was overwhelming,” Spillane said during the hearing.
Prosecutors in Williams’ original trial said he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, 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.
Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to cover up blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he was wearing a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or two later.
Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was imprisoned on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.
Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted felons seeking a $10,000 reward.
Three other men — Christopher Dunn, Lamar Johnson and Kevin Strickland — were released after decades in prison under Missouri’s 2021 law.
Williams has been on the verge of execution before. In August 2017, hours before his scheduled death, then-Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after reviewing the same DNA evidence that had motivated Bell’s attempt to overturn the conviction.
A rising star in Missouri Democratic politics, Bell defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Cori Bush in a primary this month and is the clear favorite to advance to November’s general election.
Williams is black, and during the hearing, the man who prosecuted him, Keith Larner, was asked why the trial jury included only one black juror. Larner said he only screened out three potential black jurors, including one he said looked like Williams.
Williams’ attorney, Joseph Green, told Hilton that when Williams was on trial, he was also representing a man who killed his wife and injured several others in a shooting at the St. Louis County courthouse in 1992. That case took time away from him working on Williams’ defense, Green said during the hearing.
“I don’t think he did our best,” said Green, now a judge.
