Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky writes,"State has dirty hands in Terrance Williams case," for today's paper.
Judge Sarmina, a former city prosecutor who is no dewy-eyed sap, believes that's what happened.
I am for the death penalty, but only when we are certain the accused committed coldblooded murder. Another stipulation is that the prosecution must play by the rules. The D.A.'s role is to secure justice, not just convictions.
There is, at least, strong suspicion that the D.A.'s office broke the rules. If so, sadly, that wouldn't be a first. It happens more often than we would like.
If you believe in justice, you can't allow prosecutors to put their thumbs on the scales. Some of you are thinking the defense does that all the time, and you are right. But the defense represents an individual; the D.A. represents the state - you and me.
The Philadelphia Inquirer posts, "What next?" by Joseph Slobodzian.
Monday and Tuesday could see a burst of last-minute legal activity as Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court decides whether to affirm or reverse Friday’s ruling staying Wednesday’s scheduled execution of condemned Philadelphia killer Terrance Williams.
Legally, as of now Williams’ death sentence for the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood, 56, is on hold. But that could change in an instant if the state’s high court reverses the stay by Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office filed the emergency motion with the Supreme Court hours after Sarmina’s ruling but since then, according to the court’s website, nothing: no orders for the filing of legal briefs, scheduling of a hearing, response of any kind.
That may not be unusual and District Attorney Seth Williams said Friday that he does not believe it likely that the court will act on his emergency motion before Terry Williams’ death warrant expires at midnight Wednesday.
According to Janet Kelley, a spokeswoman for Gov. Corbett, if the warrant expires the governor is required to sign a new warrant within 30 days from when Sarmina’s stay is lifted. A new execution date would then have to be set within 60 days of the signing of the new warrant, Kelley said.
Any action by the state Supreme Court before Wednesday will trigger appeals by one side or the other to the federal court system or even to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Judge in Terrance Williams case a "terrier" for the truth," is by Donald Gilliland for the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
When attorneys speak Judge Teresa Sarmina's name, they tend to do so in the respectful tone of the previously wounded.
The diminutive but ferociously intelligent Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge has a courtroom demeanor reminiscent of Martin Shaw's Judge John Deed on the BBC, alternately humorous and severe, prone to sparring with attorneys over the nuance of case law and - with a keen ear for the unsaid - taking over the examination of witnesses herself.
Sarmina is known as a terrier: once she gets her teeth into something, she doesn't let it go.
What she usually shakes out is the truth - or something closer to it than would have been presented to her otherwise.
But the habit exasperates attorneys on both sides of the bench.
This week Sarmina granted a stay of execution for Williams after a last-minute appeal that stretched into three days. Her ruling - which excoriated the prosecution in the case as both unconstitutional and unethical - dropped like a boulder into the pond of current and former state prosecutors, prompting the likes of Ed Rendell to spring to the former prosecutor's defense.
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams accused Sarmina - without speaking her name - of unfairly victimizing former prosecutor Andrea Foulkes and "offering brutal murderers what they don't deserve."
The circling wagons of political reputation aside, the evidence was clear - and much of it had been unearthed and entered into evidence by Sarmina herself.
And:
"Judge calls off execution of death-row inmate," by Mensah M. Dean in the Philadelphia Daily News.In the end it was clear that multiple witness interviews had been "sanitized" of references to Norwood's predilection for boys before being handed over to the defense. Critical information - including full details of the prosecution's plea bargain deal with their main witness - had been withheld.
And most importantly, it was clear that Foulkes presented a skewed and misleading portrait of the victim to the jury when they sat down to consider the death sentence.
"Evidence has plainly been suppressed," said Sarmina, who noted that Foulkes' tendency of "playing fast and loose" inclined her "toward a finding that the suppression was closer to willful" rather than inadvertent.
Sarmina said Foulkes engaged in "gamesmanship" and "had no problem disregarding her ethical obligations" in an attempt to win.
CITING GROSS prosecutorial misconduct and evidence suppression, a Philadelphia judge on Friday vacated the Oct. 3 execution sentence of Terrance Williams and ordered that he be granted a new penalty hearing.
The ruling by Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina indefinitely halted an execution decades in the making.
Williams' first-degree-murder conviction is unchanged by the ruling, meaning that the jury at his new penalty hearing will determine if he should be sentenced to death or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole.
And:
The defense argued that former Assistant District Attorney Andrea Foulkes, who prosecuted Williams in 1986, kept that evidence from the trial defense attorney and jury and instead presented Norwood as a kindly, sympathetic figure who merely had offered Williams a ride home.
Sarmina agreed with the defense, noting the two boxes of evidence turned over just this week from homicide detectives that, she said, corroborated the defense claims against Norwood and Herbert Hamilton, 50. Williams, at 17, had a sex-for-money, abusive relationship with Hamilton and murdered him five months before killing Norwood.
Additional coverage includes:
"Execution Halted for Killer Claiming Abuse by Victim," by Jon Hurdle in the New York Times.
The updated AP report is, "Judge Halts Execution of Terrance Williams," by Maryclaire Dale, via WCAU-TV.
"Terry Williams, Facing Death for Killing Alleged Abuser, Granted Stay of Execution," by John Rudolf at Huffington Post.
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.
Comments