A hearing is expected today in the case of death row inmate who claims innocence, weeks before he’s scheduled to be executed

A Missouri judge is expected to hold an evidentiary hearing Wednesday over the innocence claim of death row inmate Marcellus Williams, whose quest to prove he did not murder a woman in 1998 has been complicated by contaminated DNA evidence.

A Missouri judge is expected to hold an evidentiary hearing Wednesday over the innocence claim of death row inmate Marcellus Williams, whose quest to prove he did not murder a woman in 1998 has been complicated by contaminated DNA evidence. Williams, 55, is scheduled to be put to death on September 24 for the murder of Felicia Gayle, a one-time reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found stabbed to death in her University City home. He was convicted in 2001 of first-degree murder, burglary and robbery, among other charges, and sentenced to death, but he has always maintained his innocence. St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Hilton was ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court to hold Wednesday’s hearing after the court blocked an agreement Hilton approved between the inmate and the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office that would have spared Williams’ life. The case has pitted Wesley Bell, a local prosecutor running for Congress as a Democrat, against state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican seeking reelection. Williams’ innocence claim is championed by attorneys for the Innocence Project and the Midwest Innocence Project. His case raises the specter of a potentially innocent person being put to death, an inherent risk of capital punishment. Indeed, at least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 have thereafter been exonerated, four of them in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In January, the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, led by Bell, filed a motion to vacate Williams’ conviction, saying DNA evidence that could purportedly exclude Williams as the killer had never been reviewed by a court. Prosecutors were expected to present evidence in court last Wednesday to support that motion, which relied on analysis by three DNA experts who determined DNA testing excluded Williams as the person who wielded the knife used to kill Gayle. But the hearing did not happen as scheduled as Bailey’s office – which opposed the local prosecutor’s motion – argued new DNA testing showed the knife had “been handled by many actors, including law enforcement” and so would not exonerate Williams.