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On Wednesday, Marcellus Williams will finally have a hearing on his innocence claims. The 55-year-old death row prisoner was convicted in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle during a robbery of her suburban St. Louis home. It comes not a moment too soon for Williams, who Missouri plans to put to death in September.
It’s not the first time he has faced such a deadline. In 2017, Williams was hours away from execution when the governor granted him a reprieve so a panel could evaluate his innocence claims, including DNA testing that wasn’t available at the time of the crime. The testing excluded Williams as the source of DNA found on the murder weapon, according to his lawyers. Last year, a new governor disbanded the panel without releasing its findings.
A lot changed between 2017 and 2023. In 2021, the Missouri legislature passed a law that allows local prosecutors to file a motion to throw out convictions of people who they believe to be innocent. Longtime St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch — who believed fervently in Williams’ guilt — was also replaced by Wesley Bell, who ordered a review of the case and was troubled by what he found. Bell cited “clear and convincing evidence” of Williams’ innocence in a motion to vacate the conviction, a move made possible by the 2021 law.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey will oppose Williams’ release at the hearing on Wednesday, something he’s had plenty of practice at this summer. He also battled St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore over the innocence case of Chris Dunn, who spent 34 years in prison after being convicted of a 1990 St. Louis murder. The two eyewitnesses connecting him to the crime — who were both under the age of 15 at the time — have since recanted.
Similar to Williams’ case, Gore filed a motion to toss Dunn’s conviction under the 2021 state law. Judge Jason Sengheiser agreed with Gore’s view of the case earlier this summer, concluding that “in light of new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty,” and ordered Dunn’s release.
Dunn was getting ready to walk out of prison late last month when a challenge from Bailey stopped his release. As Dunn’s wife put it to The Washington Post, “He was literally 50 feet from freedom.” Dunn had to wait another week until the state supreme court ruled that Bailey didn’t have the authority to hold him.
Bailey also fought to keep Sandra Hemme in prison this summer after the courts overturned her murder conviction, 43 years into a life sentence. There was no evidence linking Hemme to the crime aside from a confession that she offered while heavily sedated and in a “malleable mental state,” according to the judge who reviewed and tossed her conviction.
Bailey argued that Hemme should remain in prison to begin serving two sentences for convictions she received while incarcerated — including a 10-year sentence for attacking a prison worker with a razor blade in 1996 — an argument the state supreme court rejected.
Legal observers have expressed some surprise and dismay at just how aggressive Bailey has been in opposing wrongful conviction and innocence claims. In several cases, he has opened himself and other state officials to contempt of court charges in his efforts to keep people detained after a judge had ordered them released. But it’s not uncommon for prosecutors to take a rigid posture in the face of innocence claims. In a 2015 study of wrongful convictions, Jon Gould and Richard Leo found that police and prosecutors were the largest sources of opposition to exonerations.
A similar scenario is playing out in Erie County, New York. Last summer, a judge threw out Brian Scott Lorenz’ conviction for a 1993 murder. Prosecutors have succeeded in keeping him in prison — where he’s been for the last 30 years — while they appeal the ruling.
Looking at exonerations from death row, an analysis this week from the Death Penalty Information Center found that wrongful convictions usually occur because of several causes, including official misconduct, mistaken witness identification, false confession, and false or misleading forensic evidence.
In Texas, a law passed in 2013 was supposed to help create a pathway for relief in wrongful convictions influenced by bad forensic science. The statute, dubbed the “junk science law” has not led to a single new trial for a death row prisoner since its passage however, and criminal defense advocates like the nonprofit Texas Defender Service have said it’s not fulfilling its intended purpose.
Lawyers for Robert Roberson — who my colleague Maurice Chammah wrote about last year — say that his case ought to be the perfect test for the law. Roberson was convicted in the 2003 death of his 2-year-old daughter under the theory that she died of “shaken baby syndrome,” which has since faced medical and legal scrutiny.
Roberson is scheduled for execution in October.
