Former State Chief Justices: Pennsylvania Justice Should Not Have Approved Death as D.A., Then Reviewed Case on Appeal

In a recent Washington Times op-ed, two for­mer state supreme court chief jus­tices argue that a state supreme court jus­tice who, as dis­trict attor­ney, had autho­rized the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of a defen­dant, should not have lat­er par­tic­i­pat­ed as a judge in decid­ing an appeal in that case. Gerald Kogan (pic­tured, l.), for­mer chief jus­tice of the Florida Supreme Court, and Michael Wolff (pic­tured, r.), for­mer chief jus­tice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, joined a num­ber of oth­er for­mer judges who had been pros­e­cu­tors and for­mer appel­late court jurists in fil­ing briefs sup­port­ing the posi­tion of Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er Terry Williams in the upcom­ing U.S. Supreme Court case, Williams v. Pennsylvania. The case, which the Court will hear on February 29, con­cerns the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille in the pros­e­cu­tion’s appeal of a tri­al court rul­ing that had over­turned Williams’ death sen­tence because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The appeals court reversed the tri­al court and rein­stat­ed Williams’ death sen­tence. Kogan and Wolff say that Castille should have recused him­self from hear­ing the appeal. ​“We, along with many oth­er for­mer judges, have urged the Supreme Court to find that Chief Justice Castille’s pri­or rela­tion­ship to the case cre­at­ed an imper­mis­si­ble risk of bias,” they say. ​“As the for­mer dis­trict attor­ney, Chief Justice Castille per­son­al­ly, in a hand­writ­ten note, autho­rized seek­ing the death penal­ty for Mr. Williams. Moreover, he used the Williams death ver­dict to sup­port his cam­paign for the Supreme Court seat. And final­ly, con­sid­er­ing the case required Chief Justice Castille to eval­u­ate a court’s find­ing of mis­con­duct against the office over which he formerly presided.”

The for­mer chief jus­tices urge the U.S. Supreme Court to con­sid­er the poten­tial impact of the case on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem: ​“Impartial tri­bunals, free of actu­al and appar­ent bias, ensure the pub­lic trust in the courts and the rule of law. Chief Justice Castille’s fail­ure to remove him­self from Terry Williams‘ case under­mined the fair­ness of the pro­ceed­ings, and dam­aged our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as a whole. We have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to agree, and to reaf­firm the impor­tance of a judi­cia­ry that acts fair­ly and without conflict.”

(G. Kogan and M. Wolff, ​“Being fair and neu­tral,” Washington Times, February 11, 2016.) Read the Brief for Amici Curiae Former Judges With Prosecutorial Experience here. Read the Brief of Former Appellate Court Jurists as Amici Curiae here. See U.S. Supreme Court and New Voices.