Missouri Prisoner Executed After Making—and Losing—New Plea Deal
On September 13, 2024, a Missouri judge rejected an unusual request by St. Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell to overturn the conviction of condemned state prisoner Marcellus Williams, just weeks after accepting a new plea deal that the state Supreme Court then invalidated. Bell then took the ruling by St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Bruce F. Hilton back to the state’s high Court for another round in a bitter back-and-forth over the case with state Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R). But the Court ruled against the prisoner on September 23, 2024, leaving him to face his date with death on September 24, 2024.
Williams, 55, was scheduled to die after Gov. Mike Parson (R) lifted a stay of his execution which had been granted by Parson’s predecessor, former Gov. Eric Greitens (R)—only minutes before Williams’ last date with death in 2017, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Nov. 2017, p.50.] Parson also dissolved a panel of five judges that Greitens put together to review evidence in the case, a decision that the state Supreme Court refused to reverse on June 4, 2024. See: State ex rel. Parson v. Walker, 690 S.W.3d 477 (Mo. 2024). The high Court then declined Williams’ request to withdraw his execution warrant on July 12, 2024. See: State v. Williams, 2024 Mo. LEXIS 250.
Bell next asked the trial court to hold a hearing on new evidence Williams’ DNA was absent from the gun used in the murder, which Judge Hilton granted. Bailey returned to the Supreme Court to block the hearing, but the justices denied his bid on July 26, 2024. Before the hearing arrived on August 21, 2024, however, analysts found the DNA of a prosecutor and an investigator on the weapon, meaning it had been mishandled during trial. Williams then agreed to a surprise deal with Bell and entered a no-contest plea to the murder charges, accepting a sentence of life without possibility of parole.
Bailey immediately cried foul, and the Supreme Court agreed that Hilton could not resentence Williams without scheduling a separate hearing—one where Bailey could voice his objections. Hilton then proceeded with the previously scheduled evidentiary hearing, finding the confusion of DNA was insufficient reason to overturn the prisoner’s conviction.
Williams steadfastly maintained his innocence in the fatal 1998 stabbing of St. Louis Post reporter Felicia “Lisha” Gayle. Though no physical evidence tied him to the crime, Williams was convicted of Gayle’s murder in 2000 based on conflicting testimony from witnesses who were incentivized with payments totaling $10,000. Post-conviction testing in 2016 then excluded Williams as the source of DNA found on the murder weapon, sparking both Greitens’ decision to stay his execution and Bell’s petition.Bailey refused to go along, however, locked in a tough fight for re-election against a GOP primary challenger, Will Scharf, who tried to paint him as soft on crime.
Parson refused to grant a last-minute stay, and Williams’ execution became the state’s third of the year, after killing prisoners Brian Dorsey, 52, on April 9, 2024, and David Hosier, 69, on June 11, 2024. Hosier died also maintaining his innocence in the 2009 fatal shooting of Rodney and Angela Gilpin. As for Dorsey, there was no doubt that he killed his cousin and her husband, Sarah and Ben Bonnie, two days before Christmas 2006. But Dorsey was suffering from drug-induced psychosis at the time, something his trial attorneys failed to argue. The state Supreme Court found that insufficient reason to stay his execution, as did Parson, although 60 state Department of Corrections guards wrote the governor urging commutation for Dorsey, describing him as a “model prisoner.”
Meanwhile Bell, 49, launched a challenge to unseat fellow Democrat Cori Bush, 48, from the U.S. House of Representatives. The progressive Congresswoman’s criticism of the Israeli invasion of Gaza put her in the crosshairs of a powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Bell collected $8 million from AIPAC and aligned groups and won the primary on August 6, 2024. He faces Republican businessman Andrew Jones, Jr. in the November 2024 election.
Additional sources: AP News, CNN, KSDK, New York Times, Riverfront Times, U.S. News
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