Today's Philadelphia Inquirer reports, "Judge in Williams bid for execution stay orders sides to make their cases." It's by Joseph A. Slobodzian.
The Philadelphia judge who is hearing condemned killer Terrance Williams' bid to stay his Oct. 3 execution has ordered lawyers to argue their positions Tuesday.The decision by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina followed four hours of testimony Monday by Marc Draper, Williams' admitted accomplice in the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood.
Draper, who is serving a life term after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against Williams at trial in 1986, told Sarmina that police pressured him to say Norwood's killing happened during a robbery and not because Williams' rage at Norwood for sexual abuse since he was 13.
In another development Monday, the state Board of Pardons announced it would vote Thursday on whether to reconsider Williams' plea to commute his death sentence to life without parole.
The five-person board, chaired by Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. in Harrisburg. If a majority votes yes, the board will hear the case at 2:30 p.m.
On Sept. 17, the board voted, 3-2, for clemency. A unanimous vote is needed for the nonbinding recommendation to go to Gov. Corbett.
Monday's testimony by Draper, 46, was key to Williams' effort to persuade Sarmina to stay what would be the state's first execution since 1999.
"Truth becomes elusive in appeal of execution," by Mensah M. Dean for the Philadelphia Daily News.
A CONFESSED murderer whose hours of testimony on Monday were intended to help sway a judge to stop the execution of Terrance Williams had to explain why he lied on the stand decades ago and why he has appeared to utter several new lies.
The shaky performance by Marc Draper, 46, set the stage for closing arguments Tuesday morning in the evidentiary hearing before Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina.
Draper, incarcerated for 28 years of a life sentence after pleading guilty to his role in the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood, 56, stuck to the story he testified to when the hearing began last week: that Williams initiated the killing out of rage at having been in a five-year sexual relationship with Norwood.
"Judge calls for more evidence in hearing to stay execution of Terrance "Terry" Williams," is by Donald Gilliland for the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
Monday morning two boxes of 28-year-old police investigation records were wheeled into a Philadelphia courtroom, and instantly the plot thickened.
The second day of an emergency stay hearing in the execution of Terrance “Terry” Williams extended to three.
Williams was convicted of the 1984 bludgeoning death of Amos Norwood, a 56-year-old man who was likely having sex with him. Williams is slated to be executed on Oct. 3.
The primary witness in the case recently changed his story, claiming he told police and prosecutors that “the homosexual relationship” was the motive of the killing, but that they told him if he wanted leniency, he had best say the killing was motivated by robbery, which he did.
The prosecutor at the time, current U.S. Attorney Andrea Foulkes, says he’s lying.
The witness, Marc Draper, currently serving life in prison for his role in the murder, says Foulkes is lying.
Who to believe?
Astonishingly, documentary evidence surfaced last week that lends some credence to the convict’s story - enough evidence that Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina ordered the police investigation records to be hauled out of storage for inspection.
"Pardons board may take second vote in death penalty case," by Karen Langley in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The Pennsylvania Board of Pardons plans to meet Thursday to decide whether it will reconsider its recommendation against clemency for Terrance Williams ahead of his Oct. 3 execution.After hearing arguments that Williams deserves clemency because he had been sexually abused by the man he murdered in 1984, as well as by other men, three of the five members of the board voted earlier this month to recommend that Gov. Tom Corbett grant clemency. Attorneys for Williams had urged that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison. But such a decision requires a unanimous vote by the board, so the 3-2 vote does not allow Mr. Corbett to act.
After a request by the federal defenders representing Williams, the board today agreed to meet at 9 a.m. Thursday in Harrisburg to decide whether it will hold a second hearing. If a majority approves, the board will hear the case again that afternoon.
The York Daily Record posts the AP filing, "Death row inmate Terrance Williams' stay of execution hearing to continue."
A Philadelphia judge will hear summary arguments Tuesday on whether to halt the scheduled execution of a man who killed two people in his teens.
The arguments follow testimony Monday from an accomplice who says he lied at Terrance Williams' 1984 trial about the motive for the second killing.
"Testimony wraps up in stay of execution hearing for convicted killer," at CNN.
Attorneys for a convicted killer will focus on a former prosecutor's notes when they argue Tuesday their client should not die by lethal injection in nine days.No one disputes that Terrance Williams beat Amos Norwood to death with a tire iron in 1984 or that he should be in prison.
But the defense team says information that Norwood had allegedly sexually abused Williams was withheld from the trial, and his life should be spent in a cell.
"One of the strongest pieces of our case it that, as we heard in court on Thursday for the first time ever, that in the prosecutor's own file, in her own handwriting, there was evidence that Mr. Norwood had been previously accused of touching boys," attorney Shawn Nolan told CNN. "The prosecutors have known about that evidence throughout the whole history of this litigation."
The judge overseeing the stay of execution hearing, M. Teresa Sarmina, referred last week to the notes of Andrea Foulkes, who was the prosecutor in Williams' 1986 trial, which showed Foulkes had heard about possible incidents of Norwood abusing boys. The notes also referred to Norwood as a "john" for Williams.
Williams' accomplice, Marc Draper, continued his testimony Monday and prosecutors tried to portray Williams as male prostitute rather than a victim of sexual abuse.
"Williams appeal continues into second day," by Emma Jacobs for WHYY-FM NewsWorks.
Asked by the judge why he stood by statements for 26 years that he now says are false, Draper said: "Looking back now it's almost laughable. Going through the interrogation room, I was a sheep for whatever they wanted me to do. I regret that. I'm almost ashamed to say that right now, because I was so gullible."
Williams's lawyers won't speak to the press during the ongoing hearing. Mark Bookman, Executive Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation says Williams does not deserve to die for the crime he committed as a teen.
"You've got an 18 year, 3-month-old who was by virtually all accounts at this point, sexually abused almost his entire life. To think that he's the worst of the worst is absurd."
Testifying last week, the prosecutor in the original case said she had no proof of a sexual relationship between Williams and the murder victim.
"I never told him [Draper] to lie about anything. I never told any witness to lie about anything."
Pages of her case notes produced last week show she heard reports that the older man had sexually abused other boys.
Democracy Now posts, "New Evidence Emerges in Pennsylvania Death Row Case," earlier this morning. There is video at the link.
In a new evidentiary hearing, Andrea Foulkes, the prosecutor who oversaw the case against Williams three decades ago, was confronted with her own notes showing the mother of another of Norwood’s abuse victims had told her that Norwood molested her son. For years, Foulkes has rejected the argument that Williams had a motive of seeking revenge against Norwood for sexual abuse.
"Terry Williams Death Penalty Case Rocked By New Evidence Days Before Planned Execution," is John Rudolf's Huffington Post report.
The prosecutor sat in the witness box, as the judge told her to review a document from a murder case decided nearly 30 years ago."It looks like notes about an interview," said Andrea Foulkes, a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney and now a federal prosecutor. "That is my handwriting."
The interview, in late 1984, was with a mother whose 16-year-old son belonged to a church youth group led by Amos Norwood, a 56-year-old chemist recently found stabbed and beaten to death in a cemetery.
"Touched on privates," Foulkes said, reading from her notes. "Brought boy home and told him not to say anything. Heard from others about possible incidents."
Foulkes' notes, introduced as evidence for the first time in Pennsylvania state court on Friday, represent an explosive new twist in the case of Terry Williams, sentenced to death in 1984 for killing Norwood in what the jury believed was merely a robbery gone wrong.
Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins at the link; commentary on the case, in the next post.
Advocates for Terry Williams have posted an online petition calling for clemency.
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