"Not tonight. Condemned killer spared execution," is the Philadelphia Inquirer breaking news post by Joseph A. Slobodzian.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has refused a prosecution plea to reinstate today's execution of condemned Philadelphia killer Terrance Williams.
At about 3:45 p.m., the court in a one-sentence order denied the District Attorney's emergency motion and ordered court personnel to draft a schedule for filing legal briefs and, perhaps, an oral argument.
The state's high court decision let stand last Friday's ruling by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina that the 1986 trial prosecutor made Williams' death sentence more likely by withholding informtion that Williams was sexually molested by his victim.
"Condemned Killer's Life Spared in Last Hours," is the AP filing, via WCAU-TV.
Pennsylvania's top court has denied prosecutors' emergency petition in a death penalty appeal, meaning Terrance Williams will not be executed tonight.
The 46-year-old Williams has a stay of his scheduled execution, which is the first in Pennsylvania in more than a decade. A state judge has vacated his death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing after finding last week that prosecutors hid evidence at his 1986 trial.
Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said prosecutors suppressed evidence that Williams' victim was an alleged pedophile who abused boys, including Williams, so jurors were not aware of those allegations when they voted to impose the death penalty.
But Philadelphia prosecutors appealed to the state's high court to overturn that ruling and reinstate the death penalty in time to execute Williams on Wednesday. The court rejected the appeal.
CounterPunch posts, "Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Death Penalty," by Linn Washington, Jr.
The recent outrage in Pennsylvania over the scheduled October 3 execution of a man who killed two men who had sexually abused him during his childhood has tarnished the reformer image of Philadelphia DA Seth Williams, exposing him as just another prosecutor willing to trample justice to preserve a death penalty.
When Seth Williams successfully campaigned to become Philadelphia’s top prosecutor a few years ago he used a catchy phrase: “A New Day/A New DA.”
But based on Williams’ recent posturing and positions taken by him, evidence indicates this new DA continues operating in the same old way as his predecessors.
Instead of running his office in accordance with that ‘New Day’ many expected, DA Williams is defending death penalty cases that are stained by prosecutorial misconduct and is pursuing factually bogus charges against victims of police brutality, including one involving a blind man charged with attacking the police who beat him.
The most pronounced example of Williams’ old wine/new bottle stance is his vigorous –and intellectually dishonest — public relations campaign backing the execution of child-sex abuse victim-turned-murderer Terrance Williams.
Earlier coverage of Terry Williams' case begins at the link.
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