U.S. Supreme Court Hears Argument in Pennsylvania Judicial Bias Case

On February 29, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argu­ment in Williams v. Pennsylvania, a case chal­leng­ing for­mer Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the state’s appeal of a death penal­ty case involv­ing Terry Williams (pic­tured), whose cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion Castille per­son­al­ly autho­rized in his ear­li­er role as Philadelphia District Attorney. A low­er court judge over­turned Williams’ death sen­tence in 2012 find­ing that Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors had with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, includ­ing that Williams’ vic­tim had a his­to­ry of molest­ing boys. That evi­dence would would have sup­port­ed Williams’ claim that he, too, had been sex­u­al­ly abused by the vic­tim. That mis­con­duct, which occured while Castille was District Attorney, was the cen­tral issue before the state Supreme Court in the state’s appeal in Williams’ case. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the low­er court deci­sion and rein­stat­ed Williams’ death sen­tence. In an ami­cus brief filed by the Ethics Bureau at Yale Law School, Lawrence J. Fox wrote, ​“Judges who wear ​‘two hats’ in the same case vio­late the require­ment of judi­cial impar­tial­i­ty. Chief Justice Castille’s con­duct deeply under­mined the integri­ty of the judi­cial pro­ceed­ings and tram­pled any notion of due process for Mr. Williams.” During today’s argu­ment, sev­er­al Justices expressed con­cerns about Castille’s par­tic­i­pa­tion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Castille should have recused him­self from Williams’ case because ​“he signed his name” on the autho­riza­tion to seek the death penal­ty. Justice Anthony Kennedy said he did not think the pas­sage of near­ly 30 years between Williams’ tri­al and his appeal less­ened Castille’s potential bias.

(M. Dale and M. Sherman, ​“Justices Weigh If DA-Turned-Judge Had Murder Case Conflict,” Associated Press, February 28, 2016; M. Sherman, ​“JUSTICES HEAR JUDICIAL-BIAS CLAIM IN DEATH-ROW CASE,” Associated Press, February 29, 2016.) See U.S. Supreme Court.