A Missouri judge on Thursday upheld the conviction of Marcellus Williams, a death row inmate, rejecting a local prosecutor’s argument that there is strong evidence that Mr. Williams is innocent.
Just a month ago, Mr. Williams, who was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a well-known newspaper reporter, in her suburban St. Louis home in 1998, had seemed likely to be released or at least removed from death row. But now he is just days away from execution.
The effort to clear Mr. Williams, 55, was upended by a last-minute analysis of trace DNA found on the murder weapon, a kitchen knife. Mr. Williams and his lawyers had hoped that it would show that an unknown third party had committed the murder. Instead, the DNA was consistent with that of a detective and prosecutor who handled the knife, which left Mr. Williams and his lawyers without the evidence that they hoped would point to another suspect.
In his ruling on Thursday, Judge Bruce Hilton, who heard the prosecutor’s motion to overturn the conviction, said that the new analysis had “unraveled” Mr. Williams’s claim of innocence.
The judge said that other issues raised by the prosecutor, Wesley Bell, including that Mr. Williams’s defense lawyer was ineffective and that jury selection was colored by racial bias, were “nothing more than repackaged arguments about evidence that was available at trial.” Judge Hilton said those arguments had already been heard and rejected by the Missouri Supreme Court.
The case pitted Mr. Bell, a Democrat who promised to correct past mistakes by law enforcement in St. Louis County, against the state attorney general, Andrew Bailey, a Republican who has routinely opposed wrongful conviction claims and had maintained that Mr. Williams was guilty.
Mr. Williams is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 24.
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