The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Williams v. Pennsylvania, a case chal­leng­ing for­mer Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in an appeal of a case that had been tried in Philadelphia while Castille was the city’s dis­trict attor­ney. Terrance Williams (pic­tured) was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Philadelphia in 1984 for the mur­der of a man pros­e­cu­tors had described to the jury as ​“a kind man [who had] offered [Williams] a ride home.” Williams was 18 at the time of the mur­der. His death sen­tence was reversed days before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion in 2012 because pros­e­cu­tors under Castille’s tenure had with­held infor­ma­tion that the vic­tim, a church dea­con, had sex­u­al­ly abused teenagers he had met through his church and that the tri­al pros­e­cu­tor knew that the vic­tim had sex­u­al­ly abused Williams. In 2014, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rein­stat­ed Williams’ death sen­tence. Williams’ lawyers asked Castille to recuse him­self from the case, say­ing he had ​“per­son­al­ly approved the deci­sion to pur­sue cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment” against Williams, con­tin­ued to head the office when it defend­ed the death ver­dict on appeal, and, in his elec­toral cam­paign for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, had tout­ed ​“the num­ber of defen­dants he had ​‘sent’ to death row, includ­ing [Williams].” Castille denied the motion for recusal and authored a con­cur­ring opin­ion that crit­i­cized Williams’ lawyers and the judge who had ruled in Williams’ favor.

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the ques­tion of whether Castille’s fail­ure to recuse him­self vio­lat­ed Williams’ rights, and whether it mat­ters that Castille did not cast the decid­ing vote. Marc Bookman, direc­tor of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, said Castille’s par­tic­i­pa­tion cre­at­ed a con­flict of inter­est: ​“It is his for­mer office that is being accused of hid­ing evi­dence. He has a stake in pro­tect­ing the office that he led at the time that all this hap­pened.” Governor Tom Wolf grant­ed Williams a reprieve of his death sen­tence and announced a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Pennsylvania on February 13. 

(M. Sherman, ​“Justices to Review Bias Claim Against Top Pennsylvania Judge,” Associated Press, October 1, 2015; J. Roebuck, ​“U.S. Supreme Court agrees to scru­ti­nize Castille’s role in death-row inmate’s case,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 1, 2015; Williams v. Pennsylvania, Petition for Writ of Certiorari, June 12, 2015.) See U.S. Supreme Court.

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