Missouri death row inmate in plea deal to avoid execution

A Missouri death row inmate has entered an agreement with prosecutors that calls for him to be resentenced to life in prison without parole.

But the state attorney general opposes the no-contest plea deal for Marcellus Williams, 55, and wants the 24 September execution to go ahead.

Williams was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a social worker, during a burglary of her home in a gated community in a St Louis suburb in 1998.

But someone else's DNA was found on the knife used to stab the former St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter 43 times.

“Marcellus Williams is an innocent man, and nothing about today’s plea agreement changes that fact,” his lawyer, Tricia Bushnell, said in a statement to AP news agency.

On Wednesday, Williams entered an Alford plea - where a defendant does not admit to the criminal act, but acknowledges the prosecution has enough evidence to convict him. He will be formally sentenced on Thursday.

He was hours away from execution in August 2017 when then-Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a delay in the light of new DNA testing that had been unavailable at the time of the murder.

The results found genetic material on the blade did not match Williams.

New DNA test results released on Monday found the weapon had been contaminated by handling from investigators.

Prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion asking the court to vacate Williams' conviction earlier this year.

The "paucity" of evidence "casts inexorable doubt" on the conviction, wrote Mr Bell, a Democrat.

He also said there had been racial discrimination in selection of the jury of 11 white people and one black person who convicted and sentenced Williams, who is black, to death.

However, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, is appealing to the Missouri Supreme Court to move ahead with the execution.

In a June court filing he said the evidence against Williams was "overwhelming".