August 23, 2024
Williams, who professes his innocence is set to be executed on Sept. 24.
On Aug. 21, Marcellus Williams, who has been on death row since being convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle and set for execution on Sept. 24, made a plea deal with prosecutors to be resentenced to life without parole, according to Fox 2 Now. But, on Aug. 22, The Associated Press reported that the Missouri Supreme Court had nullified that agreement and ordered a hearing on Williams’ innocence claim.
Wow: The Missouri state Supreme Court has blocked the agreement sparing Marcellus Williams’ life. The Sept. 24 execution date is still on https://t.co/5iStaeZFGI https://t.co/tQe35MJcRy
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) August 22, 2024
Williams, who has claimed he is innocent, was scheduled for resentencing on Aug. 22, when he would have entered a no-contest plea to first-degree murder in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle based on a ruling Aug. 21 by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hinton. The judge approved the plan that maintained Williams was innocent, but the plea acknowledged the evidence was sufficient for a conviction.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey appealed right away, stating that a circuit court did not have the authority to override a capital murder sentence. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Bailey, ordering the judge to “set aside said consent order and judgment and file notice with this Court that you will take action … including holding the evidentiary hearing previously scheduled and anticipated.”
Previously, St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell asked the judge to vacate Williams’ murder conviction based on DNA testing after it was discovered that other DNA was found on the knife that was used to kill Gayle. A new DNA test report was released earlier this week stating that the handling of the murder weapon years ago by a former assistant prosecutor and a former investigator in the case contaminated the evidence so much that it was of no value to Williams’ case. Based on that report, prosecutors decided to reach an agreement with Williams.
At Williams’ original trial, prosecutors stated that he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. The assailant took her purse and her husband’s laptop. Gayle, a white women, was a social worker who worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The latest evidentiary hearing has been set for Aug. 28.
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