Inmate's claim that Pennsylvania's top justice should have recused himself gets SCOTUS review
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether a death-row inmate’s constitutional rights were violated when Pennsylvania’s then-chief justice refused to recuse himself, despite approving the inmate’s capital prosecution as district attorney.
The court granted cert on Thursday in the case of Terrance Williams, who says Chief Justice Ronald Castille should not have participated in the unanimous decision that upheld Williams’ conviction, report the Associated Press, Reuters, the Philadelphia Inquirer and SCOTUSblog. Castille retired last year.
According to Williams’ cert petition (PDF), Castille denied a motion to recuse and joined with other justices to reverse a lower court decision finding that prosecutors concealed the murder victim’s history of sexually abusing teens. Williams claimed after his conviction that he had been abused beginning at the age of 13 by the murder victim. Prosecutors had claimed the victim’s beating death was motivated by robbery. Williams was 18 at the time of the crime and played football for Cheyney University.
Castille had touted his record of putting 45 people on death row when he campaigned for his seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1993. One of those people was Williams.
The cert petition cites two issues: Whether Williams’ constitutional rights were violated by Castille’s participation in the case, and whether the violation applies even though Castille’s vote was not decisive for the case.
