On Sept. 28, four days after closing arguments in an emergency hearing, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina stayed the execution of convicted murderer Terrance Williams, 46, who had been scheduled to die Oct. 3.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday denied an emergency prosecution motion to reinstate the execution. An appeal will proceed.
The State Board of Pardons had split on clemency for Williams earlier last month. Williams was convicted in 1986 of murdering Amos Norwood, 56, after he beat Norwood to death with a tire iron and socket wrench. Prosecutors claimed the murder was committed in the commission of a robbery and had presented the case as a random stranger attack.
Williams was 18 at the time of the slaying and has been in prison since the 1984 murder. He has been held on death row since 1986 and is still appealing his sentence.
The emergency hearing was predicated on new evidence put forward by Williams’ current attorney, Shawn Nolan, that police and the former prosecutor in the case had kept information from the jury that Williams had been sexually assaulted by Norwood and that Norwood was a known pedophile who had been sexually abusing Williams since he was 13.
Norwood’s widow had urged clemency for Williams at the hearing and in a plea to Gov. Tom Corbett. More than 360,000 signatures have been signed requesting clemency for Williams.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could no longer be applied to juveniles. At the end of June 2012, SCOTUS ruled that sentencing teenagers to life in prison was a violation of the Eighth Amendment and represented cruel and unusual punishment.
Williams had already turned 18 at the time of the Norwood murder, so neither ruling is applicable, although those seeking clemency for Williams have cited both in their arguments.
Sarmina gave a scathing recounting of events in a 45-minute statement from the bench on Sept. 28. She stipulated that prosecutors had deliberately withheld the evidence that Norwood had sex with minor boys, including Williams. Sarmina said she was staying Williams’ execution because, had the jury heard the complete evidence, they may have chosen a different verdict than the death penalty.
Sarmina also ruled that the new evidence — which had been secreted in police files for the past 28 years that Williams has been incarcerated — was not enough to warrant a new trial. It was, however, reason to stay the execution and grant a new sentencing hearing.
Sarmina concluded, “This court is granting a stay of execution and this court is granting a new penalty phase.”
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams (no relation to the prisoner) immediately rebuked Sarmina for her ruling and vowed to see Williams executed. DA Williams contended that the alleged abuse was just that — alleged — and that Williams is manipulating the court with this new information. He told reporters that Sarmina ignored the fact that Williams had not raised the issue of abuse at his original trial. But Williams’ attorney said Williams was 18 at the time and first met his attorney the day before his trial.
Williams’ co-defendant in the case, Marc Draper, who is currently serving a life sentence for the crime, testified at the hearing before Sarmina that it was Norwood’s assaults on Williams that made him kill Norwood. It was Draper who raised the abuse issue with the court, stating he was told not to mention it at the original trial.
Nolan said, “Terry’s case is unique, and Terry is deserving of mercy. We hope that those with the power to prevent this injustice will agree that Terry’s death sentence should be commuted to life without the possibility of parole. Most Pennsylvanians would agree that the death penalty is the punishment for the worst of the worst offenders, not for traumatized victims of sexual abuse who strike back at their abusers. Terry Williams’ story is one of horrific childhood sexual and physical abuse. A victim of sexual abuse since the age of 6, Terry was preyed on repeatedly by older males throughout his childhood. Born into poverty, with a violently abusive mother and no father, Terry was vulnerable and victimized by a series of predators.”
Nolan said that Williams was “deeply traumatized from the sexual and physical abuse,” and that was why he killed Norwood. Nolan added, “Terry is profoundly remorseful.”
The National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women in Philadelphia has thrown its support behind Williams’ bid for clemency, stating, “Like other victims of abuse whom we assist, Mr. Williams’ victimization was not investigated or presented to the jury, nor did the jury know that the decedent sexually assaulted Mr. Williams many times, including violently raping him the night before the incident.”
Several jurors have stated in affidavits that had they known about the abuse, they would not have voted to sentence Williams to death. That information was also presented at the hearing. Sexual abuse is considered a mitigating circumstance in the sentencing phase of perpetrators.
DA Williams is appealing Sarmina’s ruling to the state Supreme Court.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court could still overturn Sarmina’s ruling, but in a statement on Sept. 28, Nolan, Williams’ attorney, said, “We do not believe that the court will tolerate the prosecutor’s actions in this case, especially when life or death are at issue.”
Ron Castille, chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, was district attorney in Philadelphia during the period of Williams’ original trial in 1986 and, therefore, some have called for him to recuse himself from considering the Sarmina ruling due to a conflict of interest. Castille, however, has refused to do so.
There have only been three executions in Pennsylvania since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. All three occurred during the administration of Gov. Tom Ridge (R), and all three prisoners had chosen to quit their appeals and be executed, the last in 1999.
The last time a death-row inmate was executed against his will — before his appeals ran out — was in 1962 when Elmo Smith was executed for the grisly rape and murder of a Philadelphia high school sophomore, Mary Ann Mitchell.