Judge's Stay Should End Williams' Death Sentence

That's the title of an editorial published in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

The historic ruling Friday by a Philadelphia judge to stay the execution of condemned killer Terrance Williams has given Pennsylvania yet another compelling reason to vacate Williams' death sentence once and for all.

With the clock still ticking, the courts and Gov. Corbett have an opportunity to correct a horrific wrong by sparing Williams' life and commuting his punishment to life in prison, a more appropriate sentence.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina made the right ruling in staying the execution scheduled for Wednesday. At the same time, she upheld the guilty verdict for the murder.

Sarmina found that prosecutors withheld crucial evidence that might have convinced a jury in Williams' 1986 trial to sentence him to life for the killing of a city man, Amos Norwood.

Her findings are stunning in a case that could be a textbook example of the flaws in a capital punishment system already proven to be fallible, a system that puts minority and poor defendants at a greater risk of the death penalty.

And:

The governor should leave Williams to spend the rest of his life in prison without a chance of parole. And Pennsylvania should scrap the death penalty entirely.

"Castille refuses to recuse self in Williams decision," is the Inquirer news report written by Joseph A. Slobodzian.

Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday rejected a defense motion to disqualify himself from the case of Terrance Williams because he had been the city district attorney when Williams was condemned to death.

Trying to preserve a stay that will keep Williams, 46, out of the execution chamber Wednesday, Williams' lawyers contended that Castille's participation created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Castille, however, denied the motion in a one-sentence order late Monday. Castille rejected as well a companion bid to leave the decision up to his five fellow justices.

Castille was Philadelphia district attorney in 1986 when Williams was sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood.

As the city's top prosecutor, Castille approved the decision to seek the death penalty and to defend the sentence on appeal.

Now, as chief justice of the state's high court considering whether to reinstate Williams' execution Wednesday, Castille's history seems a conflict of interest, the defense argues.

In 18 years on the court, Castille has rebuffed recusal motions based on his tenure as district attorney from 1986 to 1991.

And:

The death warrant for Williams expires at midnight Wednesday. If the stay is later reversed, Gov. Corbett would have to sign a new death warrant.

"Pennsylvania has a log-jam of death penalty cases nearing the ends of their appeal processes," by Charles Thompson of the Harrisburg Patriot-News looks at and beyond the Terry Williams' case.

While Williams’ fate has yet to be determined, legal experts suggest that the state will likely soon be dealing with the death penalty for the first time in more than a decade.
    
It appears that in Pennsylvania, the death penalty could soon mean death again.
    
There is a logjam of decades-old death penalty cases that are nearing the end of the appeals marathon. And for some of them, there may be no more valid reasons to apply the brakes that haven’t already been fully litigated.
    
The next test case may be that of Hubert Lester Michael Jr.
    
A former Lemoyne resident, Michael is currently facing a Nov. 8 execution for the 1993 abduction and killing of 16-year-old Trista Eng near Dillsburg.
    
Michael has no more appeals remaining, so he will be forced to seek some sort of emergency stay to avoid execution. His attorney, Ronald Travis of Williamsport, did not respond to requests for an interview for this story.
    
Of the 200 inmates currently on Pennsylvania’s death row, 85 were sentenced to the death penalty before Michael. Thirty-nine of them have been on death row since the 1980s. Three inmates on death row are women.

“I don’t know whether it’s this year or next year... but for Pennsylvania to have three, four executions a year I don’t think would be surprising,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
    
“There’s just too many cases clicking along in that long, slow system.”

"Disrespecting victims of abuse," is by Sue Osthoff in the Inquirer.  She's the director of the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, based in Philadelphia.

Many advocates for victims of sexual assault, victims of violent crime, children's rights advocates, and others are closely following the case because of the horrific physical and sexual abuse that Terry Williams suffered from age 6 until he killed two of his abusers at ages 17 and 18.

With Pennsylvania's recent history of child sexual-abuse cases, it is unacceptable for the district attorney to write about allegations of sexual abuse with such disdain: "There was a neighbor boy, allegedly, and a friend, and a teacher, and his cellmates at the youth detention center, all of whom supposedly took advantage of him." Whether Seth Williams believes these charges or not, the rape of a child is not "taking advantage of him."

The district attorney's language fails to reflect the gravity of the experience of child sexual abuse and rape, and most importantly, disrespects all victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins at the link.

Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct category index.  The responsibility of the state to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense was articulated in the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland; more via Oyez.