A case built on snitch witnesses
The case against Mr. Williams turned on the testimony of two unreliable witnesses who were incentivized by promises of leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money. The investigation had gone cold when a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him, while they were both locked up in jail, that he committed the murder. Cole directed police to Laura Asaro, a woman who had briefly dated Mr. Williams and had an extensive record of her own.
Both of these individuals were known fabricators; neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. Their statements were inconsistent with their own prior statements, with each other’s accounts, and with the crime scene evidence, and none of the information they provided could be independently verified. Aside from their testimony, the only evidence connecting Mr. Williams to the crime was a witness who said Mr. Williams sold him a laptop taken from the victim’s home, but the jury did not learn that Mr. Williams told the witness he had received the laptop from Laura Asaro.
New DNA testing confirms Mr. Williams is innocent yet no court has considered that evidence
As he has fought to prove his innocence, Mr. Williams has repeatedly faced imminent execution. To date, no court has given substantive consideration to the evidence exonerating him; the August 21 hearing will be the first time a court engages in that review.
Nine years ago, the Missouri Supreme Court stayed Mr. Williams’s execution and appointed a special master to review DNA testing of potentially exculpatory evidence. This testing showed that Mr. Williams was not the source of male DNA found on the murder weapon.
However, in 2017, after the testing was completed but without conducting a hearing or making any findings based on the outcome of the testing, the appointed special master sent Mr. Williams’s case back to the Missouri Supreme Court. That court, also without considering the DNA testing results, again scheduled Mr. Williams’s execution.
Recognizing that the new evidence raised serious doubts about Mr. Williams’s guilt, on August 22, 2017, mere hours before his execution and after his last meal, then-Governor Eric Greitens stayed the execution and convened a Board of Inquiry to investigate the case. Under Missouri law, the stay was to remain in place until the Board of Inquiry concluded its review and issued a formal report.
Yet in June 2023, while the Board of Inquiry’s review remained ongoing, Governor Mike Parson without warning or notice dissolved the Board without a report or recommendation from the Board. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey then promptly sought a new execution date. Mr. Williams sued Governor Parson because the dissolution of the Board without a report or recommendation violated the law and Mr. Williams’s constitutional rights. The Governor tried to dismiss the lawsuit, but a Cole County civil judge denied that request. The Governor then asked the Missouri Supreme Court to intervene. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed to do so and on June 4, 2024, it dismissed the lawsuit and immediately scheduled Mr. Williams’s execution for September 24, 2024.
The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney has concluded that Mr. Williams is actually innocent and moved to vacate his conviction
After the exculpatory DNA evidence was brought to his attention, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell appointed a special prosecutor to review Mr. Williams’s case. The special prosecutor reviewed the findings of three independent DNA experts. All three concluded that Mr. Williams was not the source of male DNA on the weapon, and therefore could not have killed Ms. Gayle. Mr. Williams’s exclusion from the murder weapon is consistent with his exclusion from other forensic evidence collected from the crime scene including a bloody shoeprint and hairs found near the victim’s body.
Recognizing that “new evidence suggests that Mr. Williams is actually innocent” (p.3), in January 2024 the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’s conviction. The motion explains: “DNA evidence supporting a conclusion that Mr. Williams was not the individual who stabbed Ms. Gayle has never been considered by any court. 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.” (p.1) The Prosecuting Attorney urged the circuit court “to begin the process of correcting this manifest injustice by [holding] a hearing on the newfound evidence and the integrity of Mr. Williams’s conviction.” (p.3)
The Missouri Attorney General continues its history of fighting innocence cases
Although the Prosecuting Attorney’s motion remains pending and the law requires the circuit court to hold a hearing on it, as that court recognized, the Missouri Attorney General has taken the position that Mr. Williams’s innocence does not matter, and the Missouri Supreme Court has scheduled his execution.
On July 18, the Attorney General filed a writ of prohibition asking the state supreme court to block the evidentiary hearing scheduled for August 21.
The Missouri Attorney General’s office has argued in other death penalty cases that even DNA evidence of innocence is not enough to stop an execution. In a 2003 oral argument before the Missouri Supreme Court, Justice Laura Denvir Stith asked Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung, “Are you suggesting … even if we find that Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?” “That is correct, your honor,” Jung replied. The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately disagreed, and Amrine was exonerated. But over 20 years later, the same arguments are still being made.
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office has opposed every innocence case for the last 30 years, including every attempt made by a local prosecutor to overturn a conviction on the basis of innocence, as the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney is doing in Mr. Williams’s case. In 2021 and 2023 Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson were exonerated despite the Attorney General’s attempts to thwart the prosecutors’ motions to vacate.
Incentivized informants are a leading cause of wrongful convictions
Jailhouse informant testimony like that leading to Mr. Williams’s conviction is one of the leading contributing factors of wrongful convictions nationally, playing a role in 15% of DNA exoneration cases. Eleven of the 54 individuals exonerated in Missouri were convicted with the use of informant testimony.
In capital cases, false testimony from incentivized witnesses is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, with informant testimony present in 49.5% of wrongful convictions since the mid-1970s (Source: Warden, R. 2005. The snitch system: How snitch testimony sent Randy Steidl and other innocent Americans to death row. Center on Wrongful Convictions.)
Racial bias contributed to Mr. Williams’s wrongful conviction
Mr. Williams, a Black man, was wrongfully convicted of murdering a white woman. His jury was comprised of 11 white people and only one Black person. The prosecutor, whose institutional practice of racially discriminatory jury selection has been widely documented, successfully removed six of seven qualified Black prospective jurors with peremptory challenges. A recent study of 400 death-eligible cases in St. Louis County over a 27 year period also revealed racial disparity in the use of the death penalty based upon the race of the victim. Defendants were 3.5 times more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim was white, as in this case, compared to if the victim was Black.
Mr. Williams is devoutly religious and an accomplished poet
During his 24 years in prison, Mr. Williams has devoted much of his time to studying Islam and writing poetry. He serves as the imam for Muslim prisoners at Potosi Correctional Center and is known as Khaliifah. He has an exemplary prison record and is widely respected within the prison community and beyond.
Read more about Marcellus Williams’s case at www.savemarcellus.org or www.marcelluswilliams.org.
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