Federal public defenders in Pennsylvania requested a stay of execution Tuesday for death-row prisoner Kenneth Dewayne Williams, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night at the Cummins prison in Grady.
In one motion for a stay, attorneys cited "pervasive juror misconduct" in Williams' capital-murder trial in 2000 and requested a hearing on the matter, with testimony from the jurors.
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A second motion for a stay notes that Williams never received a hearing to determine whether he is intellectually disabled. It says he meets the three prongs used to legally determine intellectual disability, and notes that anyone meeting that definition is ineligible for the death penalty.
The separate motions for a stay were filed alongside a request to reopen Williams' 2007 federal habeas petition, which he filed after the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld his convictions that year. In the federal petition, Williams sought relief from his death sentence on many grounds, including suspected juror misconduct, but U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright denied the petition Nov. 4, 2008. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Wright's ruling on July 15, 2010, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a further appeal March 28, 2011.
The stay request citing intellectual disability says a neuropsychologist, Daniel Martel, evaluated Williams last week. It says Martel and psychologist Mark Cunningham, who evaluated Williams at trial, and neuropsychologist Ricardo Weinstein, who began an evaluation of Williams after the trial, have all concluded that he is intellectually disabled and that he met the definition of the phrase at the time of his crime.
Williams was serving a life sentence at the Arkansas Department of Correction for capital murder, attempted capital murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, theft and arson when he escaped Oct. 3, 1999, by hiding in a "slop" truck.
Cecil Boren, a retired warden who lived nearby, was at home working in his garden when he was fatally shot seven times by Williams, who stole his guns and truck. After a day on the lam, Williams was captured after a high-speed chase when the stolen vehicle he was driving collided with a water truck, killing its driver.
The stay request notes that James Moreno and Shawn Nolan of the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia were appointed to represent Williams on April 11, alongside Little Rock attorney Jeff Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig withdrew from the case April 21.
Moreno and Nolan argued that Williams has tried in the past to develop evidence of juror misconduct but that Rosenzweig was denied funding to conduct a full juror investigation.
The attorneys say their recent appointment marks the first time sufficient funds have been available to investigate jury misconduct at Williams' trial, and that they have conducted such an investigation very recently which found "significant evidence of jury misconduct, bias and exposure to improper evidence."
According to the Philadelphia attorneys, one juror who worked at the prison told other jurors during penalty-phase deliberations of Williams' trial "about her experiences working in the prison and about the differences in housing for life- and death-sentenced prisoners."
It says another juror "led the jury in prayer using a Bible that had been brought into the jury room," and a third juror later reported that a deputy sheriff who escorted jurors to and from the jury room "told the jury about a false threat against its safety made by Mr. Williams."
The three examples of "juror misconduct" and other examples Williams raised earlier, including that at least one juror was unwilling to consider mitigating evidence, all deprived him of his Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights, the attorneys argue.
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In responses submitted Wednesday, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office called the motions "an obvious attempt to overwhelm the Court with last-minute filings containing claims that could have been asserted nearly a decade ago." The filing also argues that "the state and crime victims have a profound interest in the timely implementation of a valid and final death sentence."
Attorneys for the state also used an argument -- "piecemeal litigation and dilatory tactics" -- that the 8th Circuit has cited in recently denying previous claims for relief from death-row inmates, including Williams.
"Since the entry of counsel in this case almost a month ago, Williams has pursued a raft of litigation in state and federal court," argued Deputy Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni. The response called the most recent federal filing "part of a calculated barrage of litigation" that included a filing Wednesday in Lincoln County Circuit Court.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson originally scheduled eight executions to be carried out over 11 days in April -- a pace not seen in Arkansas since at least September 1913, according to Department of Correction records.
Prison officials have said the compressed schedule was necessary not only because the state's supply of a sedative required for the three-drug lethal injection protocol, midazolam, was set to expire, but also because most drug manufacturers refuse to sell their products for executions. Shortages of midazolam and the other two drugs have slowed executions nationwide.
If Williams' execution is carried out Thursday night, he would be the fourth death-row inmate executed in the past eight days. Ledell Lee was executed Thursday, and Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were put to death Monday.
Don Davis and Bruce Ward received temporary stays April 17 on the basis that a pending U.S. Supreme Court case might apply to their convictions. Stacey Johnson, who has claimed innocence, was spared Thursday so lower courts could decide whether to order new DNA testing on evidence in his case.
A federal judge also granted a break to Jason McGehee, originally scheduled for execution this Thursday, on grounds that the state could not kill him on that date without running afoul of the proper clemency process.
Metro on 04/26/2017