"Missouri prosecutors were set to cut a deal to give death row convict Marcellus Williams life without parole until Attorney General Andrew Bailey stepped in."
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 until a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him that he committed the murder while they were both locked up in jail. 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
Jailhouse informant testimony, like that leading to Mr. Williams’ conviction, is one of the leading contributing factors of wrongful convictions nationally, playing a role in 15% of the 598 DNA-based 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, according to the Center on Wrongful Convictions.
How could any jury convict with such inconsistencies with the "witnesses"?
Important to note that a number of the jury members were also part of movement trying to stop the execution, now to some likely reasons:
They likely did not have access to the "witness" historic, thinking they testimony was just as valuable as any other (aka they were presented as trustworthy). Also they did not have some information that came out later (like the investigators fingerprints and dna in the scene and I think weapon).
Then they had a person that with their knowledge was "likely guilty" even if not fully conclusive - then add the peer pressure from people that were likely to go guilty and those wanting to go home and you got the original result and you have the result that "beyond doubt" is taken lightly
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u/DCJThief 11h ago
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp-video/mmvo219963973798
"Missouri prosecutors were set to cut a deal to give death row convict Marcellus Williams life without parole until Attorney General Andrew Bailey stepped in."