Pennsylvania Teen Exonerated 91 Years After Sham Trial and Execution on Racially Motivated Charges that He Had Murdered a White Woman

An African-American teenag­er who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Pennsylvania on false charges that he had mur­dered a white woman has been exon­er­at­ed, 91 years after he was executed.

On June 13, 2022, Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kevin Kelly grant­ed a motion filed joint­ly by lawyers for Alexander McClay Williams and the Delaware County District Attorney’s office to posthu­mous­ly over­turn Williams’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. (Williams is pic­tured with then-District Attorney William J. McCarter dis­play­ing the mur­der weapon.) District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer then filed a motion to ​“nol pros” the case, dis­miss­ing the charges against Williams and for­mal­ly exon­er­at­ing him. Williams, who was six­teen years old when he was put to death in the elec­tric chair, was the youngest per­son ever exe­cut­ed in Pennsylvania. 

The court action was the cul­mi­na­tion of years of effort by Williams’ fam­i­ly and Sam Lemon, the great-grand­son of his tri­al lawyer, to clear the teen of the mur­der of his school matron, Vida Robare. Robare had actu­al­ly been mur­dered by her abu­sive ex-hus­band, short­ly after she had obtained a divorce from him on grounds of ​“extreme cru­el­ty.” Williams was rep­re­sent­ed at tri­al by William Ridley, the first African American admit­ted to the Bar of Delaware County. Ridley was pro­vid­ed just $10 to inves­ti­gate and defend the case. An all-white jury con­vict­ed and con­demned Williams based upon a con­fes­sion coerced by police, after pros­e­cu­tors with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence. The entire tri­al took less than a day. He was exe­cut­ed with­out an appeal.

Judge Kelly grant­ed Williams a new tri­al, find­ing that the con­vic­tion was obtained as a result of ​“numer­ous fun­da­men­tal due process vio­la­tions.” A spokesper­son for the District Attorney’s office said the deci­sion to nol pros the case was ​“an acknowl­edge­ment that the charges against [Williams] should nev­er have been brought.”

“Sadly, we can­not undo the past,” Stollsteimer said. ​“We can­not rewrite his­to­ry to erase the egre­gious wrongs of our fore­bear­ers. However, when, as here, jus­tice can be served by pub­licly acknowl­edg­ing such a wrong, we must seize that oppor­tu­ni­ty.” Susie Carter, Williams’ only liv­ing sib­ling, respond­ed joy­ous­ly. ​“I am hap­py. I am hap­py,” she said. ​“There’s no way they can bring him back, but let his name be cleared of all that. He did not do it.”

Robare had been stabbed 47 times with an ice pick dur­ing the mur­der and suf­fered two bro­ken ribs and a skull frac­ture. Williams, how­ev­er, had no blood on him that day. A bloody hand­print was dis­cov­ered at the crime scene. Although law enforce­ment had the prints exam­ined by experts, the results were not pre­sent­ed at tri­al and were with­held from the defense. Police nev­er inves­ti­gat­ed Robare’s ex-hus­band as a possible suspect. 

Williams’ con­fes­sion, which did not match the cir­cum­stances of the crime, was giv­en after hours of police inter­ro­ga­tion under undoc­u­ment­ed cir­cum­stances. A 1931 pho­to­graph shows Williams with what appears to have a black eye sus­tained dur­ing police inter­ro­ga­tion. When Williams was sen­tenced to death, he shout­ed that he had been promised he wouldn’t be exe­cut­ed if he confessed. 

During his inves­ti­ga­tion, Lemon uncov­ered Robare’s death cer­tifi­cate, which named Williams as her mur­der­er before he even had been charged with the crime. ​“The guilty ver­dict was decid­ed before the case even began,” Lemon said. Robert Keller, who posthu­mous­ly rep­re­sent­ed Williams in the court pro­ceed­ings, called the case ​“racial pro­fil­ing at its worst.” 

This effort was unsuc­cess­ful because Pennsylvania does not have a mech­a­nism to grant a posthu­mous par­don. However, in 2017, because of Lemon’s con­tin­ued advo­ca­cy, Williams’ record was expunged. 

In 2015, Lemon unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed to obtain a par­don for Williams, but the efforts failed because Pennsylvania has no mech­a­nism to con­sid­er a posthu­mous par­don. Two years lat­er, he suc­ceed­ed in hav­ing Williams’ record expunged. The effort to exon­er­ate Williams received a boost in November 2019 when Delaware County elect­ed reform can­di­date Stollsteimer as dis­trict attor­ney. One of the issues in that cam­paign was the incum­bent dis­trict attorney’s refusal to reopen a near­ly 40-year-old mur­der case in which a defen­dant who con­sis­tent­ly pro­claimed his inno­cence had been impli­cat­ed by a teen offend­er who had been threat­ened with the death penalty.

Williams’ case bears a strik­ing resem­blance to the case of George Stinney, a 14-year-old Black boy who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury in South Carolina in 1944 for the mur­der of two young white girls. Stinney was the youngest per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States in the 20^th cen­tu­ry. His entire tri­al and sen­tenc­ing last­ed just three hours and the jury delib­er­at­ed for only 10 min­utes. As with Williams, Stinney did not file any appeals and was exe­cut­ed only months after his con­vic­tion. A South Carolina tri­al court vacat­ed Stinney’s con­vic­tion in 2014, posthu­mous­ly exonerating him.