That's the title of today's Philadelphia Inquirer editorial, and it begins today's coverage of the Terry Williams case. Here's an extended excerpt:
The case for sparing the life of condemned killer Terrance Williams has never been more compelling than now, just days away from his scheduled appointment with Pennsylvania's executioner.
Working along two tracks, Gov. Corbett and the courts still have a chance to head off an irreversible injustice - and what would be the state's first execution in a half-century of someone who had not given up on appealing his death sentence.
The first opportunity comes Thursday, when the state Board of Probation and Parole is set to review its rejection of Williams' clemency bid. New evidence that weighs heavily in Williams' favor should be more than enough to convince two board holdouts to recommend commutation by Corbett to a life sentence.
Those revelations, coming in the last week during hearings before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, establish that prosecutors should have given Williams' defense information that might have mitigated his sentence for killing a city man, Amos Norwood.
The disclosures support Williams' claim that he murdered Norwood after years of sexual abuse by the victim. Along with testimony from Williams' accomplice and chief accuser that he was pressured into portraying the killing solely as a robbery, some jurors in the 1986 trial have said they didn't know they could have sentenced Williams to life without parole as an alternative.
Whatever the pardons board decides, Sarmina has a clear duty when she convenes her court on Friday to enter what will be a historic ruling that would halt the Oct. 3 execution.
Presiding with methodical determination, the judge is herself a witness to how Williams, 46, was shortchanged by the state's flawed system of capital punishment. It's a system long prone to error, and known to put poor and minority defendants at greater risk of the death penalty.
Indeed, the legal twists and turns in this case - not to mention the endless appeals and court costs - make it a prime example of why the state should scrap the death penalty.
The Harrisburg Patriot-News publishes the OpEd, "Pennsylvania's big question: To kill or not to kill Terrance Williams," by Jeremy Ritch.
There is no doubt he killed his neighbor and had committed other criminal acts as a youth, including the death of a man that was ruled self-defense. To many, he is simply a hardened criminal and should pay for his crime. However, others feel because of the abuse that was inflicted there should be mercy by the court.
The other issue is that because he was convicted of second-degree murder, it seems somewhat extreme that capital punishment was even an option. As a Christian, I am opposed to the death penalty, but I do understand it is the law of the land in the state I reside in. That being said, I also believe that this particular case is a good reason to grant Williams his life and commute his sentence.
Our state was just shocked by the allegations of sexual abuse by former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky and his ultimate conviction. We know all too well the damage this kind of crime does to children. For years, we have heard of victims of abuse within the Catholic Church coming forward and finally getting justice for their pain.
At the National Constitution Center's blog, Abigail Perkiss posts, "The purpose of clemency: The case of Terrance Williams." Perkiss is an assistant professor of history at Kean University.
If Williams’ sentence is carried out on October 3, he will be the first non-voluntary execution in the state in 50 years.
But while some anti-death penalty advocates have painted Williams as a new figurehead for the abolition movement, at its heart this case is about the function of clemency in the American prison system.
As legal scholar Daniel T. Kobil argues, “clemency can be used to achieve justice, by individualizing sentencing and remitting undeserved punishment… Clemency, exercised in this way, can properly be said to be a fundamental part of any system of justice.”
The debate over clemency has a long history in the United States.
Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins at the link. In the next post, I'll have today's news coverage of the latest developments.
Advocates for Terry Williams have posted an online petition calling for clemency.
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