Terrance Williams, who is at the center of two capital punishment controversies, will have one of his cases argued at the United States Supreme Court in the next year, as the Justices accepted an appeal Thursday on Eighth and 14th Amendment grounds.
Williams wants the Court to settle a dispute in his appeals process that goes back to 2012. At the time, Williams’ defense wanted then-Pennsylvania Supreme Court chief justice Ron Castille recused from his appeals case, since Castille had been the Philadelphia district attorney when Williams was convicted in 1986 for killing another Philadelphia man, Amos Norwood.
In 2012, Castille voted with four other Pennsylvania supreme court justices, in a unanimous decision, to overturn a lower court state ruling that found Williams should have a new penalty phase in his murder trial and that his execution order should be stayed. Before that ruling, Castille declined to recuse himself from deliberations.
Link: Read the 2012 ruling
Williams’ attorneys are seeking answers from the United States Supreme Court related to two prior decisions. First, in a 2009 decision called Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., the Supreme Court said the West Virginia Supreme Court violated the concept of constitutional due process when a judge who cast a deciding vote had taken $3 million in political contributions from a party in the case.
The attorneys also cited a case from 1986, Aetna Life Insurance v. Lavoie, where an Alabama judge had voted in a health insurance case after he had filed several personal legal actions in insurance cases.
The current Supreme Court will decide in the Williams case if a judge or a member of a public tribunal should be disqualified – even if that person’s vote in a decision didn’t affect the final outcome- based on a perceived conflict of interest.
The Williams team is claiming that Castille’s decision to ask for the death penalty for Williams, while he was Philadelphia district attorney, along with Castille’s judicial role in considering allegations of misconduct of his prior district attorney's office, are key factors in the appeal.
In its reply brief, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office said the case should be denied because Williams’ claims that he was constitutionally entitled to Castille’s recusal were without merit and not applicable for review.
In a separate case not at the U.S. Supreme Court, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Philadelphia district attorney Seth Williams are in conflict over a decision by Wolf this year to stop Terrance Williams’ scheduled execution.
District Attorney Williams sued Governor Wolf after he issued a state death penalty moratorium when Terrance Williams’ execution was scheduled for March 4, 2015. The district attorney claims Wolf violated the Pennsylvania state constitution with the moratorium.
Wolf and Terrance Williams’s lawyers filed a response in June that listed historical records from Colonial times to 2014 where Pennsylvania’s governors exclusively used reprieved powers. The state’s Supreme Court will also decide that matter.
