Prosecutors raise concerns about lack of evidence as family of victim supports saving Williams from the death penalty
Missouri is slated to execute a man on death row on Tuesday, despite objections from prosecutors who have suggested he was wrongfully convicted.
Williams, who has long maintained his innocence, was convicted of first-degree murder of Gayle, a social worker and former reporter for the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Williams was, twice had his execution halted at the last minute. He was days away from execution in January 2015 when the Missouri state supreme court granted his attorneys more time for DNA testing.
In August, Williams and prosecutors reached an agreement to halt his execution: he would plead no contest to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life without parole. His lawyersthe agreement was not an admission of guilt, and that it was meant to save his life while he pursued new evidence to prove his innocence. A judgeon the agreement, as did the victim’s family, but the attorney general challenged it, and the state supreme court blocked it.
Potts, Williams’s attorney, said the case would create further mistrust in the criminal process: “The only way you can create public confidence in the justice system is if the system is willing to admit its own mistakes … The public is seeing the justice system at its most dysfunctional here.
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