Matthew T. Mangino
The Pennsylvania Law Weekly
March 22, 2016
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in
Williams v. Pennsylvania, No. 15-5040. Attorneys for Terrance Williams argued
that former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille should
have recused himself from a 2014 case involving Williams.
Castille was the district attorney of Philadelphia in 1986
when Williams was sentenced to death. Nearly 29 years later, Castille—then on
the state Supreme Court—joined in a unanimous decision reversing a trial
judge's decision to reverse Williams' death sentence.
Shawn Nolan, who handles death-penalty appeals in the
Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, told The Associated Press
before the argument, "It's just not right."
For his part, Castille said, "In Pennsylvania, we leave
it up to the judge's personal conscience ... I've always been confident that I
can be fair and impartial."
Williams was convicted and sentenced to death for the
robbery and murder of Amos Norwood. The Supreme Court affirmed Williams'
conviction and sentence, and he filed three petitions under the Post-Conviction
Relief Act, all of which were denied and affirmed by the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court. Williams also petitioned for federal habeas relief, which was denied.
On his fourth try for post-conviction relief, Philadelphia Court
of Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, said prosecutors in Castille's office
had failed to turn over evidence of the abuse to Williams' lawyer, and she
vacated the death sentence five days before Williams was scheduled to be
executed.
Williams moved to have Castille recuse himself from this
case. He refused and ultimately joined the opinion that reversed Sarmina's
decision. Castille, in an opinion laced with withering criticism, suggested
Sarmina's court had become "unmoored from its lawful duty" and
accused Williams' lawyers of sidestepping procedural rules and "pursuing
an obstructionist anti-death penalty agenda."
The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office argued that
Castille played only a fleeting part in Williams' prosecution, limited to
signing off on the decision to seek the death penalty.
"His signature on that [capital case] memo, in January
1986, was his first, last, and only contact with this case," prosecutors
said during oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices voiced concern
that Castille participated in the case. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "The
judge here actually signed his name to the review of the facts and the decision
to seek the death penalty."
Justice Elena Kagan indicated Castille should have recused
himself because he personally signed off on seeking the death penalty.
"He made the most important decision that could be made
in this case," Kagan said.
By deciding to judge the conduct of his own office in a case
in which he was personally involved, Castille created a judicial conflict so
obvious and so extreme that it violated the due process clause's guarantee of
an impartial justice system, wrote Brianne J. Gorod, chief counsel of the
Constitutional Accountability Center, on the American Constitution Society
website.
"Chief Justice Castille's conduct deeply undermined the
integrity of the judicial proceedings and trampled any notion of due process
for Mr. Williams," wrote Lawrence J. Fox in an amicus brief filed by the
Ethics Bureau at Yale Law School.
Nearly seven years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled on whether a judge should have recused himself.
The last time the court took up the issue of judicial was in
2009. In Caperton v. A.T.
Massey Coal, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), West Virginia Justice Brent Benjamin was
asked, and refused, to recuse himself in a case in which one of the parties had
contributed $3 million to his election campaign. He voted with the majority, in
favor of his contributor, reversing a jury verdict.
In analyzing a question of recusal, the court asks not
whether the judge is actually, subjectively biased, but whether the average
judge in his position is "likely" to be neutral, or whether there is
an unconstitutional "potential for bias." This unconstitutionally
high risk of bias exists where "'experience teaches that the probability
of actual bias on the part of the judge or decision maker is too high to be
constitutionally tolerable.'"
Applied to the facts of Caperton, the U.S. Supreme Court
held that "there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and
reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a particular case
had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the
case by raising funds or directing the judge's election campaign when the case
was pending or imminent."
The death penalty, like campaign contributions, can have an
impact on the impartiality of the court. Data analyzed last month by Reuters found
a strong correlation between the results in death-penalty cases and the way
each state chooses its justices.
In states like Pennsylvania where high court judges are
directly elected, justices rejected the death sentence in 11 percent of appeals
compared to a 26 percent reversal rate in states where justices are appointed,
Reuters reported.
Castille has always been a proponent of the death penalty.
When he was running for a seat on the state Supreme Court, although prohibited
from taking a position on specific issues, he would say, according to The New
York Times, "I can certainly say I sent 45 people to death row as district
attorney of Philadelphia," adding that voters "sort of get the
hint."
In a scathing decision in September 2014, only months before
the Williams decision, Castille took the Federal Community Defenders Office to
task. "Death-penalty opponents, such as the Federal Community Defenders
Office, can then redirect their efforts to the political arena, where they
belong," Castille said. "This court has a responsibility for the
entire Pennsylvania judicial system, to ensure the delivery of swift, fair, and
evenhanded justice in all cases."
Castille wasn't shy about lambasting Williams either as the
argument before the high court approached. Castille said, "He [Williams]
was actually a male prostitute ... He was prostituting himself for money. This
guy he killed was not the most upstanding individual, but he still took the
guy's life."
As court observers wait on the high court's decision, it is
worth noting that Gov. Tom Wolf has vowed to grant a reprieve to every
death-row inmate scheduled for execution in Pennsylvania.
Williams was the first to benefit by Wolf's pledge. Even
without the governor's intervention executions are unlikely in Pennsylvania.
The state has not carried out an involuntary execution in more than a half
century. There has been three executions in Pennsylvania since 1978 and all
three men volunteered to be executed.
A decision is expected this summer by the U.S. Supreme
Court. •
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