DA-turned-justice violated due process by refusing to recuse in inmate's appeal, Supreme Court rules
Pennsylvania’s former chief justice created an unconstitutional risk of bias when he refused to recuse himself in the case of a death-row inmate, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 5-3 decision.
Due process compelled the recusal of former Chief Justice Ronald Castille because he had approved the inmate’s capital prosecution—a critical decision—when he was the district attorney, the Supreme Court ruled. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.
“The due process guarantee that ‘no man can be a judge in his own case’ would have little substance if it did not disqualify a former prosecutor from sitting in judgment of a prosecution in which he or she had made a critical decision,” Kennedy wrote.
Castille had joined with other justices in reinstating the death sentence for inmate Terrance Williams, and his vote was not decisive. Yet Castille could have influenced the views of his colleagues during deliberations, and his refusal to recuse cannot be deemed harmless error, Kennedy said. As a result, Williams is entitled to a rehearing on his postconviction petition before the state supreme court.
The ABA had filed an amicus brief saying Williams should be given due process relief “in these rare-but-egregious circumstances.”
Kennedy noted that, when running for judicial election, Castille emphasized that he had sent 45 people to death row as a district attorney. The statement indicated Castille considered his involvement in capital prosecutions to be an important duty of his office, Kennedy said.
Prosecutors make critical decisions such as what charges to bring, whether to grant a plea bargain, and which witnesses to call, Kennedy said. In such circumstances, there is a serious risk that a prosecutor-turned-judge “would be influenced by an improper, if inadvertent, motive to validate and preserve the result obtained through the adversary process,” Kennedy said.
Castille had voted with other Pennsylvania justices to reinstate the death sentence for Williams, who was convicted of beating a church deacon to death with a tire iron. A lower court had stayed the sentence after finding that the trial prosecutor concealed evidence that the deacon had sexually abused Williams as a teen and that was the motive for the murder.
There was no indication that Castille was aware of the alleged misconduct by the prosecutor, but it would be difficult not to view the finding as a criticism of his former office, Kennedy said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Williams doesn’t claim that Castille had any previous knowledge of the facts at issue in his habeas petition, or that he made any decision on issues raised in the petition, Roberts said. As a result, there was no due process violation, Roberts said.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate dissent.
The case is Williams v. Pennsylvania.
