Sept. 26
PENNSYLVANIA----impending execution
Child Predators, Cheating Prosecutors and Terry Williams ---- Pennsylvania is
poised to execute a victim of horrific sexual violence despite the state's own
bad acts.
Here we go again - but, wait, this is Pennsylvania, not Texas or Florida, which
have been known to execute individuals despite evidence supporting innocence
and/or horrifying trauma histories and major mental health and intellectual
deficits. For the 1st time in more than a decade, Pennsylvania is planning an
execution. Terry Williams is the 1st Pennsylvania death row prisoner scheduled
to be involuntarily executed in 50 years in that northern state - it turns out
it's not just the South that denies people's rights and kills them anyway.
Last week, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons denied relief to Terry Williams,
even after a majority of the Board, including the Attorney General of
Pennsylvania, recommended to spare Terry's life. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania
requires a unanimous recommendation in favor of clemency in order for clemency
to be considered by the Governor.
Last Monday, the Board of Pardons heard graphic evidence of Terry's horrifying
trauma history as a child and teen at the hands of numerous, much older,
sexually-predatory men. Physical abuse by his mother and violated trust of
older men in his life, including at least 1 schoolteacher, damaged Terry.
However, the trial court and jury did not learn of this abuse from Terry's
trial lawyer, who met the teenager just the day before his capital trial almost
3 decades ago.
Ultimately, Terry killed 2 of his abusers, Herbert Hamilton and Amos Norwood.
But contrary to the "innocent" stranger the prosecutor claimed Norwood was, law
enforcement at the time of trial had extensive evidence of predatory and
abusive acts against Terry by both Norwood and Hamilton.
At another hearing later last week, evidence, including the district attorney's
own hand-written notes, was presented proving that prosecutors knew about the
sexually abusive relationship between Terry and Norwood, despite presenting the
case as a robbery, not related to sexual abuse when seeking the death penalty
from the jury.
Further, evidence has been shown that reveals an undisclosed deal for leniency
for Terry's co-defendant who testified against him, contrary to what
Philadelphia District Attorney's office representatives told the Board of
Pardons just a few days earlier that week at the Board hearing. This outright
misrepresentation influenced at least one Board member to vote against
clemency.
What does society do when prosecutors withhold exculpatory and mitigating
evidence that, as we see in this case, would have swayed not just 1 but 5 of
the trial jurors to spare a traumatized teen's life? Our government, of the
people, for the people, by the people, cannot just turn a blind eye to the
abuses suffered by Terry Williams at the hands of exploitative child abusers -
especially in a state still reeling from the scandal of another trusted youth
counselor, convicted serial child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Our government also
cannot turn a blind eye toward the corruption of the prosecutors who have lied
and cheated to put a teen on death row and who still insist that he should be
killed anyway.
Terry Williams is very remorseful about the killings. Mamie Norwood, widow of
Amos Norwood, has forgiven Terry and supports clemency for him. Terry has
received an outpouring of letters of support of clemency from child advocates,
more than a dozen former prosecutors, former judges, more than 50 clergy
members and dozens of mental health professionals. More than 350,000 people
have signed a change.org petition supporting clemency. The Pennsylvania Task
Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment, which is conducting a
legislatively-mandated study of capital punishment in the state pursuant to a
Senate resolution, set to be completed in 2013, has also requested the
execution be stayed.
The Supreme Court's recent jurisprudence addressing how young people charged
with crimes must be viewed differently because they are not fully developed
speaks directly to this case. If a child who killed his tormenters because no
one was able to protect him from them is not allowed an opportunity for
rehabilitation and redemption, who is?
(source: Tanya Greene.Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU----Huffington Post)
*******************
Terrance Williams' lawyers make final stand
Attorneys for a Philadelphia man facing execution made a final stand Tuesday to
save his life by presenting 2 boxes of 28-year-old police evidence that they
claimed city prosecutors had kept from the jury that sentenced their client to
death.
The federal public defenders for Terrance Williams, 46, said the evidence,
which they received Monday, contain documents corroborating their contention
that their then-teenage client had been sexually abused by the middle-aged man
he killed.
"We presented an extremely strong case in light of the fact that the
commonwealth continued to hide evidence up until last night," defense attorney
Shawn Nolan said after closing arguments in the three-day evidentiary hearing.
Assistant District Attorney Robin Godfrey told Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa
Sarmina that boxed evidence was the property of the Police Department, not the
D.A.'s Office, and that the defense would often not receive it.
The defense team asked Sarmina to vacate Williams' 1986 death sentence and
grant him a new penalty hearing, during which a jury would hear the new
evidence and render a sentence of death or life in prison without parole.
A ruling will be announced Friday morning, the judge said.
Williams, once a star quarterback at Germantown High, is scheduled to be
executed next week for the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood, 56, a married father
and active member of St. Luke's Episcopal Church.
Williams and accomplice Marc Draper, both 18 at the time, tricked Norwood into
driving them to the darkened Ivy Hill Cemetery, where they beat him to death
with a tire iron and wrench.
At trial, Williams testified that he had not been at the scene and that Draper
and another man were the killers. Draper testified that he and Williams killed
Norwood during a robbery.
But during this week's hearing, Draper, who is serving a life sentence for the
murder, recanted his testimony and said Williams initiated the slaying out of
rage at being in an abusive sexual relationship with Norwood. Draper claimed
that he had lied at trial after being threatened by homicide detectives and
coached by the trial's prosecutor, Andrea Foulkes.
Defense attorneys say the new evidence supports their theory that prosecutors
covered up the real motive to get the death sentence they sought.
Defense attorney Billy Nolas said that when Foulkes told the jury Norwood was
"a kind man" who merely offered the defendant a ride home the night of the
murder, she "created a false, inaccurate impression for this jury."
"It's grown men with young boys - it's awful. And the jury should have heard
that it was awful," said Nolas, who added that the prosecutions's case "stinks
to high heaven."
Foulkes testified last week that she never told Draper to lie. She said she
lacked evidence to tell the jury of a sexual link between Williams and Norwood.
(source: Philadephia Daily News)
**************************
Judge to consider new evidence in appeal of Philly death row killer
A Philadelphia judge will consider a death row inmate's new claims that the men
he killed had sexually abused him as she mulls halting next week's scheduled
execution.
Terrance Williams, now 46, is set to be the 1st person executed in Pennsylvania
in 50 years who has not given up his appeals. He now says the 2 men he killed
just before and after his 18th birthday had been molesting him.
His lawyers argued Tuesday that they found leads in police homicide files
turned over to them only Monday night that support claims victim that Amos
Norwood was a child molester. And they believe police and prosecutors knew it -
but never shared the information with Williams' now-disbarred trial lawyer or
the jury.
Prosecutors accused the defense of stall tactics.
"Every hour of delay only benefits the defense in their ultimate goal of trying
to get a stay ... because time is running out," Assistant District Attorney
Ronald Eisenberg said.
Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina plans to rule Friday on the motion to
delay the Oct. 3 execution after taking new testimony this month from the 1986
trial prosecutor and an accomplice who now recants his testimony for the
government.
The accomplice, a policeman's son named Marc Draper, said police threatened to
charge him with the unsolved murder of a pregnant woman if he didn't tell
jurors that he and Williams killed Norwood in a robbery at a cemetery. He said
Monday that he had told police Norwood was paying Williams for sex. They didn't
want to hear it, he said.
Death penalty lawyers with the Defenders Association of Philadelphia, after
exhausting Williams' appeals, argue that prosecutors withheld evidence that
might have steered the jury toward a life sentence, if not a different verdict
on Williams' guilt.
A separate jury months earlier had convicted Williams of 3rd-degree murder for
killing another accused abuser when he was 17. That jury heard about the sex
angle. But the Norwood jury did not.
"There's every reasonable likelihood that it would have affected the verdict,"
public defender Billy Nolas argued.
Prosecutors countered that if anyone would have known about the abuse, it would
have been Williams, who kept silent.
A divided state pardons board turned down Williams' bid for clemency last week
but may reconsider at a hearing set for Thursday. Federal courts have earlier
faulted the work of his trial lawyer, who supposedly met Williams the day
before trial and was later imprisoned and disbarred on unrelated matters. But a
U.S. appeals court declined last year to overturn Williams' death sentence.
The police homicide files, along with those from the trial prosecutor, contain
several credible leads that Norwood was abusing teen boys, Nolas argued.
According to the files:
- A church pastor told police that Norwood, a 56-year-old deacon, had once been
accused of molesting a 17-year-old. The pastor said he took care of the matter
"internally" and never discussed it in his trial testimony.
- Widow Mamie Norwood described an odd "abduction" when her husband brought
armed teens to the house and left with them and the family stereo, which he
said they sold for drug money. He refused to tell police about it.
- And the trial prosecutor had notes reflecting that she was aware Norwood
might have been involved with Williams. She had also prosecuted Williams'
earlier murder case, which involved Williams' sexual relationship with
50-year-old victim Herb Hamilton.
Sarmina agreed to consider the new evidence in weighing the motion to stay the
execution, but it might not be definitive.
"You're entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect trial," she told Nolas.
(source: Associated Press)
ARIZONA:
Sides get time to resolve Ariz. execution dispute
A federal judge is giving state officials and lawyers for death-row inmates
more time to try to settle a lawsuit challenging Arizona's execution
procedures.
District Judge Neil Wake's order Tuesday grants the sides until Oct. 26 to
settle the case, have it dismissed or proceed toward trial.
The sides had faced a Friday deadline but they asked for more time to discuss
recent revisions to the Department of Correction's written procedures to
reflect changes already implemented.
Those changes include allowing execution witnesses to see injection lines being
inserted into the inmate and using only one execution drug.
The case centers on inmates' claims that their constitutional rights to
protection against cruel and unusual punishment could be put at risk by how the
state conducts executions.
(source: Associated Press)
VIRGINIA:
Capital defender Baugh resigns
David P. Baugh, a former federal prosecutor who gave up his private practice 4
years ago to represent poor people facing the death penalty, resigned his state
position last week.
Baugh, the capital defender for the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission's
central region, 1 of 4 regions in the state, would not comment Monday on the
reason for his sudden departure and did not return calls for comment.
On Friday evening, Baugh posted on his Facebook page: "Yesterday was the most
humiliating day of my life. Betrayed, but so much stronger."
On Saturday, he wrote: "To all whose...caring and concern I do not deserve,
thank you. I am balanced, and reflecting. I have resigned as capital defender
and am returning to private practice."
According to Virginia Lawyers Weekly, Baugh said he resigned in the face of
"hostile work environment" accusations.
David Johnson, executive director of the commission, said the commission
discussed a personnel matter in closed session last Thursday, and when they
returned to open session they voted to terminate Baugh's employment effective
at the close of business last Friday.
"David was informed of that decision and he elected to tender his resignation,"
said Johnson, who said he could not comment further.
Baugh took the job in 2008 when he was 60. He told the Richmond Times-Dispatch
at the time, "I have a great practice. I really enjoy it, (but) when you reach
a certain age, it's time to do something else."
When an indigent person is charged with capital murder, the judge contacts the
capital defender in the region, who is usually assigned as the lead lawyer or
co-counsel to another appointed lawyer.
Johnson said Baugh had 4 pending cases, one of them now a 1st-degree murder
case, and that there is co-counsel in each case. "Steps are being taken to
ensure that the clients are well-represented," he said.
An African-American, Baugh started practicing law in Houston in 1975. He then
joined the U.S. Attorney's Office as an assistant in Beaumont, Texas, before
transferring to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond.
He left that job in 1983 after suggesting in open court that a federal judge
here was racially biased in his sentencing. He then went into private practice,
opening his own firm on South Cherry Street in 1988.
In 1991, he was in a midtrial brawl in the John Marshall Courts Building with
Joseph D. Morrissey, then the Richmond commonwealth's attorney and now a member
of the House of Delegates.
Later, Baugh defended a Ku Klux Klansman who burned a cross in violation of
state law and defended - and kept off death row - an al-Qaida terrorist who
bombed the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, killing 213 people.
He also served on Richmond's School Board.
(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
MASSACHUSETTS:
Death penalty opponent Sister Prejean to speak at Wellesley College chapel
Sister Helen Prejean, who has led a public debate against the death penalty,
will speak Thursday, Sept. 27, at 7 p.m. in Houghton Chapel at Wellesley
College.
Her opposition to capital punishment was dramatized in the film "Dead Man
Walking" in which actress Susan Sarandon earned an Academy Award for playing a
character based on her.
A Roman Catholic and member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, Prejean's
efforts on behalf of condemned prisoners began in 1981 when she agreed to be
the spiritual advisor for Elmo Patrick Sonnier who had been convicted of the
rape and murder of a young teenage woman and murder of her boyfriend in
Louisiana.
After his death by electrocution , Prejean published "Dead Man Walking," an
autobiographical memoir of her relationship with Sonnier and other death row
inmates which has been made into a movie, play and opera.
(source: Milford Daily News)
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