The Intercept
Marcellus Williams was sent to Missouri’s death row in 2001 for a murder he swore he did not commit.
Forensic testing of the knife used to murder Felicia Anne Gayle Picus revealed male DNA that did not belong to Williams, but he is scheduled to be executed tonight at 6 PM CST.
The Intercept
On the eve of Williams’s scheduled execution in 2017, then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens intervened, issuing an executive order that triggered a rarely used provision of Missouri law, empaneling a board to review the evidence, including DNA, that jurors never heard about at trial.
Gov. Mike Parson dissolved the panel before it could report its findings. https://interc.pt/48XNNmb
The Intercept
Both the Missouri Supreme Court and Gov. Parson have refused to grant a stay of the execution, and now it's up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to allow Williams's execution by lethal injection tonight to proceed or not.
Make sure to follow Jordan Smith as she covers the latest developments as they happen tonight.
The Intercept
Since being appointed to his post in 2023, Bailey has spent a considerable amount of time attempting to thwart state courts from exonerating the wrongly convicted — or even from considering their claims. https://interc.pt/4e0GPzY
The Intercept
On Sept. 12, the St. Louis County Circuit Court judge upheld Williams's murder conviction, ruling that the prosecutor who contaminated the evidence by handling it without wearing gloves had not acted in “bad faith,” but instead was merely following his normal procedure.
The ruling dismantled Williams’s latest attempt to prove his innocence and paved the way for his execution tonight. https://interc.pt/3ZkM3lt
The Intercept
But AG Bailey’s office ran to the Missouri Supreme Court, arguing that the judge didn’t have the power to agree to such a deal and that Williams should face execution. The court sided with Bailey, ordering the judge to hold a hearing on Bell’s motion to vacate the conviction as originally planned. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf
The Intercept
A new round of analysis confirmed that Williams’s genetic material was not on the knife, but it could not exclude either Larner or his investigator as the source of the unknown DNA.
Whatever DNA might have existed connecting the perpetrator to Picus’s murder was irretrievably lost — thanks to the prosecution’s handling of the evidence. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf
The Intercept
According to St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, the state’s willful mishandling of the evidence before trial had violated Williams’s rights, meaning his conviction and death sentence must be overturned. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf
The Intercept
Bell’s office struck a deal with Williams on August 21. The prosecutor would concede constitutional error and take the death penalty off the table if Williams agreed to enter a so-called Alford plea that let Williams acknowledge a strong case against him while maintaining his innocence; the plea would let him avoid the death penalty by accepting a life sentence. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf
The Intercept
While the MO Supreme Court considered the dispute between AG Bailey and the Midwest Innocence Project, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell asked the Missouri Circuit Court to consider evidence of Williams’s innocence and vacate his conviction.
“This never-before-considered evidence, when paired with the relative paucity of other, credible evidence supporting guilt … casts inexorable doubt on Mr. Williams’s conviction and sentence,” the motion read. https://interc.pt/42g2izG
The Intercept
Before Williams' first trial in 2001, the handle of the butcher's knife used in the murder had been analyzed for fingerprints, but none had been found; blood on the blade matched Picus.
In August, St. Louis County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Keith Larner testified in court that back then, he had concluded that there was no additional forensic testing that needed to be done on the murder weapon, so he repeatedly handled the weapon without using gloves. https://interc.pt/4g7TWkf
The Intercept
The day after Gov. Parson dissolved the panel, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state's Supreme Court to set an execution date for Williams.
The Midwest Innocence Project sued to block the governor from disbanding the board, saying his order violated state statute. https://interc.pt/48XNNmb
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