That's the title of a Philadelphia Daily News editorial published in today's edition.
A MAN scheduled to die on Oct. 3 is becoming a cause celebre for many who believe the state erred in scheduling his execution, and over the death penalty he received 28 years ago.
Terrance Williams was barely 18 when he killed Amos Norwood in 1984. Williams' attorney has argued that Norwood had been sexually abusing Williams since the boy was 13. This information was kept from the jury, and many on the jury now say that if they had known, they would not have imposed the death penalty.
The list of those lining up to plead for clemency for Williams is long: It includes Norwood's widow, as well as 18 retired prosecutors and eight retired judges. Even Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput has argued against putting him to death.
We agree that Williams should not be put to death. And we echo Chaput's eloquent words on the subject of capital punishment, which, he wrote in a recent column, succeeds in "answering violence with violence - a violence wrapped in the piety of state approval, which implicates all of us as citizens in the taking of more lives."
"Hostile Witness: Don't execute victim that killed his sexual abusers," is by Daniel Denvir for City Paper Philadelphia.
The state of Pennsylvania is set to execute Terrance Williams on Oct. 3. In January of 1984, at age 17, Williams stabbed to death 50-year-old Herbert Hamilton of West Philadelphia. That June, a few months after Williams turned 18, he beat Amos Norwood, 56, to death with a tire iron and set fire to the body. Williams was convicted of third-degree murder for killing Hamilton and murder in the first degree for killing Norwood.
But circumstances around the killings might give pause to even a fervent capital-punishment supporter: Both Norwood and Hamilton, according to a clemency petition submitted by Williams’ lawyers, sexually abused the teenager, who suffered his first rape at age 6. The petition alleges that Norwood, a man in charge of altar boys at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Germantown, had violently raped Williams the night before he took revenge, and that Hamilton attempted to force Williams to pose for nude photos before Williams stabbed him to death. The petition lays out a heartrending story: Williams was safe nowhere during his childhood. A middle-school teacher raped him. At home, his mother and stepfather meted out frequent, severe beatings. Sent to juvenile detention for burglary at age 16, he was raped by two older boys. No one helped him. He tried to live a normal life, dating and playing sports. Alone, he used a knife to cut his skin until it bled.
The jury that sentenced Williams never heard about any of this, thanks to flawed legal representation. Several jurors have since said that they would not have voted for death if they had known.
Pennsylvania has not executed a prisoner in 13 years, and it is astonishing that Gov. Tom Corbett might execute Williams, especially given the public fury over sexual abuses by Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky and by Philly Catholic priests.
The Nation posts, "Will Pennsylvania Execute a Man Who Killed His Abusers?" It's by Liliana Segura.
At a hearing on Monday, September 17, Williams’s attorneys will have thirty minutes to convince the state pardons board to spare his life. It won’t be easy: the five-member body is notoriously stingy when it comes to commutations. Its members include the lieutenant governor and state attorney general, who, Nolan “interestingly is our opposing counsel in some of this litigation.”
Recommendations for clemency must be unanimous, and the governor must then agree. “It’s a tough process,” says Nolan. But he believes if there was ever a case for clemency, this is it.
This is not the first time Williams has faced the death chamber. Governor Ed Rendell signed an execution warrant for him in 2005—the thirty-ninth of his term. (He would go on to sign many more, boasting a total of 119 by the end of his tenure.) In fact, despite piles of execution warrants signed over the years—Corbett has signed at least nineteen since taking office—Pennsylvania has not carried out the death penalty since a prisoner volunteered in 1999. The last time Pennsylvania put a man to death against his will was in 1962.
To his supporters, resuming executions by killing of Terrance Williams would put a particularly ugly face on the state’s death penalty. —To me, this is a much more compelling case than a lot of cases that you see,” says Nolan. “It has that direct correlation to the crime. The man who was killed was victimizing this young boy, for years. And the jury never knew that. And that’s outrageous.”
Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins at the link.
Advocates for Terry Williams have posted an online petition calling for clemency. You can find out more about the case and read the entire clemency petition filed with Pennsylvania Board of Pardons.
Related posts are in the clemency index.
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