Hello everyone,
I recently came across a very good article in the George Washington Law Review
about the case of
Williams v. Pennsylvania. On June 9 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a death
row prisoner’s due
process rights were violated when Ronald Castille, the Chief Justice of the
Pennsylvania Supreme
Court, refused to recuse himself from an appeal in the case. Castille had been
Philadelphia
District Attorney at the time of the defendant’s trial, and had approved the
decision to seek the
death penalty. There were also issues of prosecutorial misconduct and
ineffective defense counsel
in the case.
The article is a little long, but well worth reading. I have made some minor
edits and removed all
but one footnote. It follows below.
All the best,
Tom Benner
Indiana Abolition Coalition (IAC) Board Member and Treasurer
***********************************
George Washington Law Review (Commentary)
Williams v. Pennsylvania: Justice Doesn’t Just Happen
By Robin Maher,
June 13, 2016
The extraordinary facts in Williams v. Pennsylvania read like a Hollywood movie
script. On one side
was the prosecutor-turned-judge who sat in judgment of a defendant whose death
sentence he had
personally authorized years earlier. On the other side was a poor
African-American kid from
Philadelphia, sentenced to death at age eighteen for killing the pedophile who
had been abusing him
since he was thirteen. It would have been a lopsided mismatch, but for the
defense lawyers in
Williams’ corner. Their diligent efforts found evidence of prosecutorial
misconduct so serious that
it halted his execution just hours before he was scheduled to die. That is,
until the
prosecutor-turned-judge voted to reinstate the death sentence he had sought
thirty years earlier. It would be hard to believe if it weren’t all true.
Williams’s story began in a poor neighborhood of Philadelphia, where violence
and abuse were the
norm. His mother was an alcoholic who frequently targeted Williams for
horrific beatings and public
humiliation. His stepfather was an angry drunk who often beat Williams and his
mother. Williams’s
traumatic childhood made him an easy target for sexual predators; he was first
raped when he was
just six years old, the first of many sexual assaults by older men. In 1984,
after suffering years
of abuse, 18-year-old Williams killed Amos Norwood, a 56-year-old man who had
been raping him since
the age of 13. Williams was charged with capital murder.
As Philadelphia District Attorney, Ronald Castille had ultimate responsibility
for any capital
prosecution decision. When his subordinates sought his authorization to seek
the death penalty, he
approved their request with a handwritten note. At trial, prosecutors told the
jury that Williams
had killed Norwood simply because Norwood had offered him a ride home.
Williams’ defense lawyers,
whom he first met the night before the trial began, did no investigation and
offered little by way
of a defense. Williams was sentenced to death. The jury never learned of his
abuse by Norwood nor
of his tragic upbringing.
Castille eventually set his sights on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He stood
for election on the
backs of the 45 men he had “sent to death row” while district attorney.
“Voters,” he explained in a
1993 campaign interview, “care most about crime.” Asked what his position on
the death penalty
would be if elected judge, Castille pointed to the number of defendants
sentenced to death under his
leadership as District Attorney. One can imagine Castille giving a broad wink
as he assured the
reporter that voters will “sort of get the hint.”
Twenty-eight years after being sentenced to death, Williams was only days from
an execution date
when his new lawyers discovered evidence that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
had kept hidden for
decades: prosecutors had secretly rewarded the false testimony of the key
witness who testified
against Williams at trial. (see footnote) They also found notes in the
prosecution’s file that
proved that the prosecution knew the victim had sexually abused young boys, but
had deliberately
kept that information from the jury. Almost unnoticed among the boxes of
documents was Castille’s
handwritten note authorizing death for Williams.
Presented with this newly discovered evidence, a Philadelphia trial court
issued a stinging
indictment of the prosecution’s conduct and vacated Williams’s death sentence.
The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania quickly appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,
where prosecutors had
reason to feel optimistic: Ronald Castille was now Chief Justice.
Williams’s defenders asked Castille to recuse himself from considering the
appeal because of his
previous involvement in the case. But Castille summarily dismissed the
request, refusing even to
refer the recusal motion to the full court. When Castille and the rest of
Pennsylvania Supreme
Court unanimously voted to reinstate Williams’s death sentence, Williams sought
review at the
Supreme Court of the United States, and the Court agreed to hear the case.
The court of public opinion decided this case before oral arguments were even
scheduled. Eight
different groups, including former appellate judges, former prosecutors, ethics
professors, the
American Bar Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed amicus
briefs arguing that
Castille should have recused himself. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
responded that Castille’s
decision to seek death for Terry Williams as District Attorney was merely
“ministerial” and did not
require his recusal. The amici response to their position was deafening in its
silence: not a
single brief was filed in support.
On June 9, 2016, a divided Supreme Court held that Castille’s failure to recuse
himself violated
Williams’s Due Process rights. Castille’s authorization to seek the death
penalty against Williams
amounted to significant, personal involvement in a critical trial decision, and
his failure to
recuse himself from Williams’s case presented an unconstitutional risk of
bias. Importantly,
Castille’s participation resulted in “structural error, affecting the State
Supreme Court’s whole
adjudicatory framework.” That meant that the votes of the other justices were
irrelevant to the Due
Process violation. As the Court explained:
The fact that the interested judge’s vote was not dispositive may mean only
that the judge was
successful in persuading most members of the court to accept his or her
position—an outcome that
does not lessen the unfairness to the affected party. A multimember court must
not have its
guarantee of neutrality undermined, for the appearance of bias demeans the
reputation and integrity
not just of one jurist, but of the larger institution of which he or she is a
part.
In a sharp rebuke to the Commonwealth’s “ministerial” argument, Justice Kennedy
noted that
Castille’s authorization was required before the Commonwealth could seek
death. “Given the
importance of this decision and the profound consequences it carries, a
responsible prosecutor would
deem it to be a most significant exercise of his or her official discretion,”
Justice Kennedy
wrote. He further observed:
[Castille’s] willingness to take personal responsibility for the death
sentences obtained during his
tenure as district attorney [during his election campaign] indicate[s] that, in
his own view, he
played a meaningful role in those sentencing decisions and considered his
involvement to be an
important duty of his office.
Even the dissenters, Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Thomas,
conceded that Castille’s
failure to recuse might have been “[in]appropriate” and “unwise,” but argued
that his recusal was
not Constitutionally required.
With the remand from the Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court now has another
opportunity to do
right by Terry Williams. And with three new justices and Castille retired,
there is every reason to
hope that a fair hearing will finally give Williams the justice he deserves.
While much has been written about the Court’s decision, there has been little
acknowledgment of the
reason this case even reached the Court at all: his lawyers. This case is a
victory for the cause
of zealous representation—the effective and unyielding defense effort that all
criminal defendants
deserve in our adversary system but too few receive. It is an essential
reminder that justice
doesn’t just “happen.” Justice requires good defense lawyers.
Terry Williams’s trial lawyers failed him, as had nearly every adult in his
young life before he was
sentenced to death. After almost three decades on death row, he had little
reason to expect things
would ever be different. But his luck changed when the Federal Community
Defender Office for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania took his case. Williams was a dead man
walking without the
extraordinary dedication and considerable efforts expended by the lawyers,
paralegals,
investigators, and all the staff in that office who made winning justice for
him their collective
cause. The decision in Williams has real legal significance, but to me, this
case also demonstrates
the difference that ethical, dedicated, skilled, and adequately resourced
defense lawyers can and
must make in our legal system.
When I train defenders who work in other death penalty countries, I try to
explain the meaning of
“zealous defense” to lawyers who do not work in an adversarial system. I try
to describe why it is
so important to ensuring the dignity of the individual, and to justice itself.
Their often blank
faces reveal little understanding of what it means to figuratively throw
yourself between your
client and his executioner. The idea that an advocate should challenge the
government’s
case—continuously and assertively—is a remote and somewhat unattractive concept
to many foreign
lawyers, and sadly, even to many defense lawyers in the United States. But in
our legal system, it
is the only way to achieve justice for an individual, and to prevent the abuses
of government with
its enormous advantages of resources and power.
Williams’s lawyers understand this. Their fight for Terry Williams is not
over, but the edited
script now makes a Hollywood-style happy ending for him more possible than
ever.
(footnote): The Commonwealth’s key witness, Marc Draper, told Williams’s
defenders that he had
informed the Commonwealth before trial that Williams’s motive for killing
Norwood was the fact that
Norwood had been sexually abusing him. According to Draper, the Commonwealth
had instructed him to
give false testimony that Williams killed Norwood to rob him. Draper also
disclosed that the trial
prosecutor promised to write a letter to the state parole board on his behalf.
At Williams’ trial,
the prosecutor had elicited testimony from Draper indicating that his only
agreement with the
prosecution was to plead guilty in exchange for truthful testimony. No mention
was made of the
additional promise to write the parole board.
_______________________________________________
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