"A Plea for Mercy for a Murderer in Pennsylvania," is Andrew Cohen's post this morning at the Atlantic. Here's the beginning:
On Monday afternoon, before the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons in Harrisburg, lawyers for a man named Terrance Williams will attempt to convince state officials that his life should be spared-- that instead of being executed by lethal injection on October 3rd Williams (shown at left) should instead be permitted to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Despite the deadly violence of Williams' crime, despite no questions about his guilt, it's an unusually compelling clemency request-- and because of its timing, in the midst of two local sex abuse scandals, a vivid test of the nature of Pennsylvania's clemency process itself.
Williams' lawyers will make their case to five officials who will then make a recommendation to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, who signed Williams' death warrant on August 8th. The vote of the Board of Pardons must be unanimous in Williams' favor and, even then, under state law, Gov. Corbett is free to disregard it and push on with the execution. It would be the first contested execution in the state in nearly half a century (three executions between now and then occurred when the defendants in the cases all agreed to waive their appeals). And it's clear that the governor will be a tough sell.
This is so despite the fact that the widow of Williams' victim now believes that his sentence should be commuted to life. It is so despite the fact that eight former judges -- federal and state -- now believe his trial was unjust. It is so despite the pleas of 28 former prosecutors -- federal, state and local -- who have gone on the record saying that justice would be served by clemency. It is so despite the fact that five of Williams' trial jurors have come forward and declared, under oath, that they never would have recommended a death sentence for him had they known of material facts his defense attorneys did not introduce at trial.
At its core, clemency is an act of mercy, an official acknowledgment that justice will be best served in a particular instance by the granting of relief to someone who is not, technically speaking, entitled to it. There are many legitimate legal reasons why Williams ought to be given a new trial-- just yesterday a state judge agreed to hear more about the new evidence in the case-- but clemency is not about law. It's about equity. It's about the power of the state to put to right an unjust result. Below are some of the facts that were not introduced at Williams' long-ago murder trial. Judge for yourself whether he deserves to die at the hands of the state.
Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins with the preceding post.
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