Divided Pennsylvania Court Upholds New Sentencing Hearing in Judicial Bias Case Overturned by U.S. Supreme Court

In a case that led to a land­mark U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion on judi­cial bias, a divid­ed Pennsylvania Supreme Court on August 22 upheld a low­er court’s order over­turn­ing the death penal­ty imposed on Terrance Williams (pic­tured) for the mur­der of a Philadelphia church dea­con. The court split 2 – 2 on the out­come of a new appeal that had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court after for­mer Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald Castille — who had per­son­al­ly autho­rized seek­ing the death penal­ty against Williams — par­tic­i­pat­ed as a state supreme court jus­tice in decid­ing a 2014 appeal that rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty against Williams. 

Under court rules, the tie vote left in place a 2012 deci­sion by a Philadelphia tri­al court judge that had grant­ed Williams a new penal­ty hear­ing. Three oth­er jus­tices who had par­tic­i­pat­ed with for­mer Justice Castille in decid­ing the 2014 appeal recused them­selves from the new appeal. 

In 1984, Williams — then bare­ly 18 years old — killed Amos Norwood, who Williams alleges had been sex­u­al­ly abus­ing him for years. The teen nev­er met his defense lawyer until short­ly before the tri­al and did not con­fide in him that he had been sex­u­al­ly abused. Instead, Williams tes­ti­fied that he was inno­cent and had nev­er met Norwood. 

With Williams fac­ing an exe­cu­tion war­rant in 2012, the state’s lead wit­ness, Marc Draper — a child­hood friend of Williams and a co-defen­dant in the case — came for­ward and admit­ted that pros­e­cu­tors had instruct­ed him to be silent about the sex­u­al abuse and to tes­ti­fy that the mur­der had been part of a rob­bery. Williams filed a peti­tion for clemen­cy that drew sup­port from Norwood’s wid­ow, five of the jurors in the case, and advo­cates against child abuse. Three of the five mem­bers of the Pardons Board — includ­ing the state attor­ney gen­er­al — vot­ed in favor of clemen­cy, but Pennsylvania law requires a unan­i­mous vote before the gov­er­nor has author­i­ty to com­mute a death sentence. 

Days before the sched­uled exe­cu­tion, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina ordered the pros­e­cu­tion to turn over its files to her to deter­mine whether they con­tained any evi­dence that should have been dis­closed to the defense. The files con­tained evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tors had pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny from Draper; with­held evi­dence that it had giv­en him favor­able treat­ment for his tes­ti­mo­ny; sup­pressed evi­dence that Norwood had sex­u­al­ly abused Williams and oth­er boys; and mis­rep­re­sent­ed to the jury that Norwood had been sim­ply a ​“kind man” and ​“inno­cent” good Samaritan who had been mur­dered after offer­ing Williams a ride home. Judge Sarmina upheld Williams’ con­vic­tion, but ruled that the com­bi­na­tion of the gov­ern­men­t’s sup­pres­sion of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and delib­er­ate false argu­ment to the jury denied Williams a fair sentencing decision. 

Williams was fac­ing a new exe­cu­tion date when Governor Tom Wolf issued a reprieve and imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in February 2015. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office chal­lenged the gov­er­nor’s use of the reprieve pow­er, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled in Williams’s favor in December 2015. Shortly there­after, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Williams’s judi­cial bias claim.

The case now returns to Judge Sarmina for resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings. Williams’s lawyer, Shawn Nolan, who heads the Philadelphia fed­er­al defend­er’s cap­i­tal habeas unit, thanked the court for its deci­sion and urged the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to drop the death penal­ty in the case. “[T]hey should nev­er have sought death against a teenag­er who killed his sex­u­al abuser,” Nolan said.