Marion Wilson Files Clemency Plea in Georgia

Arguing that Marion Wilson (pic­tured, cen­ter) did not kill any­one and did not intend that a killing occur, lawyers for the Georgia death-row pris­on­er have filed a clemen­cy peti­tion urg­ing the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to com­mute Wilson’s sen­tence to life with­out parole. The Board, which declas­si­fied Wilson’s peti­tion allow­ing it to be released to the pub­lic, is sched­uled to hold a clemen­cy hear­ing on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, one day before Wilson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed. Wilson’s peti­tion empha­sizes three argu­ments for clemen­cy: that Wilson nei­ther killed nor planned to kill the vic­tim, Donovan Parks; that the pros­e­cu­tion gross­ly exag­ger­at­ed Wilson’s juve­nile record and gang involve­ment to make him appear more deserv­ing of the death penal­ty; and that the jury was nev­er pre­sent­ed sig­nif­i­cant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence con­cern­ing the chron­ic depri­va­tion, abuse, and neglect Wilson expe­ri­enced through­out his childhood.

Wilson was con­vict­ed of the 1996 killing of Donovan Parks. Robert Earl Butts, who was exe­cut­ed in 2018, was tried sep­a­rate­ly for the same mur­der and sen­tenced to death after pros­e­cu­tor Fred Bright told the jury that the state’s evi­dence proved that Butts had pulled the trig­ger. Both Butts and Wilson were seen ask­ing Parks for a ride and get­ting into his car. Soon after, Parks was found dead of a shot­gun wound. Wilson’s attor­neys argue that Bright, who pros­e­cut­ed both men, ​“cer­tain­ly believed that Butts was the more cul­pa­ble par­ty” because he offered a plea deal to Wilson but not Butts. Wilson, who was only 19 at the time Parks was killed, reject­ed the plea offer ​“large­ly out of fear that, as a young, small-statured inmate, he would be endan­gered in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion at a max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty prison.” Wilson sus­pect­ed Butts intend­ed to rob some­one, but has long main­tained that he had no idea Butts planned to hurt or kill any­one. Wilson went to tri­al first and was con­vict­ed. Although the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed no evi­dence that Wilson was the shoot­er, Bright nev­er­the­less argued to the jury in the penal­ty phase that he had been the trig­ger­man. At Butts’ tri­al one year lat­er, Bright con­tra­dict­ed that argu­ment, pre­sent­ing evi­dence that Butts com­mit­ted the killing. ​“That the pros­e­cu­tion false­ly main­tained that Marion was the shoot­er in order to obtain the death penal­ty was, and still remains, high­ly uneth­i­cal and con­trary to the State’s high­er duty of pro­bity and truth­ful­ness in any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing,” the clemen­cy petition states.

The clemen­cy peti­tion also high­lights oth­er false state­ments by the pros­e­cu­tion that it says gave the jury a ​“gross­ly dis­tort­ed ver­sion of [Wilson]’s teenage years and gang involve­ment.” ​“Bright’s pre­sen­ta­tion of Marion’s juve­nile record dur­ing sen­tenc­ing was rife with hyper­bole and out­right false­hoods,” the peti­tion says. Among the hyper­bole, Bright told the jury that Wilson ​“tried to burn down a duplex apart­ment” when he was 12 years old. In real­i­ty, Wilson and two oth­er pre-teen friends were play­ing in an aban­doned duplex unit and tried to warm them­selves by light­ing paper and rags on fire. A respond­ing police offi­cer said ​“there was ​‘not enough accel­er­ant’ on the smol­der­ing rags and papers to do any dam­age and that the ​‘fire nev­er real­ly caught.’” On the sub­ject of Wilson’s alleged gang affil­i­a­tion, his lawyers say the pros­e­cu­tion ​“took sev­er­al state­ments of youth­ful brava­do and pre­sent­ed them out of con­text, play­ing on the county’s preva­lent gang para­noia to present a hyper­bol­ic image of the gang men­ace fac­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.” Bright had twice been found by the Georgia Supreme Court to have made bad faith state­ments attempt­ing to link crimes to gangs when there was no evi­dence they were gang-relat­ed. However, Wilson’s tri­al lawyer failed to present evi­dence to the jury con­tra­dict­ing the prosecutor’s false assertions.

Finally, Wilson’s clemen­cy attor­neys pro­vid­ed the Board with exten­sive mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that tri­al coun­sel failed to present to the jury. They write: ​“Wilson’s life — from con­cep­tion to incar­cer­a­tion — was char­ac­ter­ized by insta­bil­i­ty, neglect, abuse and trau­ma. Teachers, social work­ers and fam­i­ly friends remem­ber a warm, intel­li­gent and cre­ative child yearn­ing for a nur­tur­ing envi­ron­ment but trapped in a hope­less sit­u­a­tion. Subjected to racism through­out his child­hood by his extend­ed fam­i­ly, school and the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty for his bira­cial iden­ti­ty, Marion strug­gled to find him­self and grad­u­al­ly suc­cumbed to the self-destruc­tive lifestyle that result­ed in his impris­on­ment as a juve­nile offend­er at the age of 17. What makes Marion’s child­hood even more trag­ic is that it is clear that for a few brief peri­ods in his life when he actu­al­ly had a mod­icum of sta­bil­i­ty, secu­ri­ty and emo­tion­al and moral sup­port, he was able to thrive.” Because of tri­al counsel’s fail­ures, they said, “[t]he jury that sen­tenced Marion to death was whol­ly unaware of his his­to­ry of per­va­sive and pro­longed abuse and neglect at the hands of numer­ous adults in his life, as well as evi­dence of impaired cog­ni­tive func­tion and organ­ic brain damage.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s death-penal­ty statute in 1976, the state has exe­cut­ed only one pris­on­er whom the evi­dence showed did not com­mit the killing — Kelly Gissendaner, who was con­vict­ed of plan­ning and cov­er­ing up her husband’s mur­der. The peti­tion argues that “[b]y virtue of the prosecutor’s mis­con­duct and his tri­al counsel’s incom­pe­tence, Marion Wilson faces death while oth­ers, far more cul­pa­ble, are spared.” it states, ask­ing the board to ​“afford Marion a chance to accept the deal he did not have the matu­ri­ty or fore­sight to take over twen­ty years ago, and allow him to prove him­self wor­thy” of a lesser sentence.