Wednesday
Dec222004
Judge Threatens US Prosecutor with Contempt for Singling Out Black Man for Death Penalty
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 at 08:30PM
A
federal judge on Friday threatened a prosecutor with contempt over the
Justice Department's decision to seek the death penalty against the
truck driver in a deadly immigrant smuggling case, a decision the
driver's lawyer contends was racially motivated. The allegation is in a
document filed by attorneys for Tyrone Williams, 33, of Schenectady,
N.Y., accused in the deaths last year of 19 undocumented immigrants who
were sealed in a trailer pulled by Williams en route to Houston. The
document asked U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore to find the U.S.
Attorney's office in Houston in contempt for failing to produce
information showing why the Justice Department decided to seek the
death penalty for Williams and not 11 others indicted in the incident
who were eligible for the death penalty. Williams' attorneys say
prosecutors have repeatedly failed to heed her order and ask that the
judge bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty. Williams'
attorney, Craig Washington, wrote in his contempt request, "To this
date, the purported responses to the discovery order have been
meaningless and not at all directed to the request for production or
the court's order for production." On Friday, Gilmore threatened to
hold one of the prosecutors in contempt if he failed to get a letter
from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft by the end of the day stating
his refusal to explain why the only death penalty ever sought in an
immigrant smuggling case is against a black man. [more] and [more]