Death Penalty Abolition

Analysis of William Nieves Case

From: Mark Clement
Subject: Analysis of William Nieves Case
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 01:45:02 -0400

PENNSYLVANIA ABOLITIONISTS:

Dear Friends,

What follows is an analysis of the recent acquittal and release of wrongly convicted Pennsylvania death row prisoner William Nieves. The summary was written by Robert Dunham, Esq., executive director of the former Center for Legal Education Advocacy and Defense Assistance. His concluding words about the limitations of DNA testing as a "cure-all" for an irreparably flawed system should serve as a cautionary reminder for those who feel that access to DNA testing alone will "fix" the problem.

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I am pleased to be able to tell you that William Nieves -- an innocent Philadelphia man who had spent more than seven years on death row after being wrongly convicted -- has been acquitted of the murder and released from prison.

In 1995, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court remanded William's case to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and directed the Court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the ineffectiveness of his trial lawyer. The specific issue was whether William was denied the right to testify at his trial when his trial lawyer mistakenly advised him that the D.A. could cross-examine him with his prior record if he chose to testify. (As a result, trial counsel put on no witnesses in William's defense. William received a death sentence when his lawyer presented virtually no defense at sentencing and the jury found no mitigating evidence. Without mitigation, Pennsylvania law compelled the jury to return a death sentence in his case.)

During the hearings order by the Supreme Court, William's trial lawyer had the courage and decency to admit that he had, in fact, erroneously advised William. The Philadelphia District Attorney's office appealed the grant of a new trial. In February, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected that appeal.

The D.A.'s office pursued the retrial despite the fact that William is Latino and witnesses had told the Philadelphia Police that the perpetrator was black. The defense was apparently unaware of these witness statements at the time of the first trial -- either because of inadequate investigation by the defense, suppression of the evidence by the prosecution, or both -- and presented no witnesses to challenge the testimony of the prosecution's eyewitness (who, it turns out, had given two conflicting descriptions of the perpetrator, neither of which described William). When these inconsistencies were pointed out and the defense produced an eyewitness who testified that the killer was a black man, and not William, the jury acquitted.

Although William was acquitted Friday, he was held in jail for an additional three nights on a supposed probation violation, which turned out to be his arrest for the murder he hadn't committed. He was finally released from custody on Monday. William was represented on his retrial by Jack McMahon.

William is the third death-sentenced defendant to have been released from Pennsylvania's death row in the last decade. In 1992, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court barred the reprosecution of Jay Smith in Dauphin County after finding that prosecutors had failed to disclose exculpatory physical evidence, intentionally suppressed the evidence while arguing in favor of death sentence on direct appeal, and attempted to discredit the state trooper who had disclosed the existence of the evidence. In the mid 1990s, Neil Ferber was released from death row after proving that he had been framed for murder. He later won a more than million dollar wrongful prosecution judgment against the City of Philadelphia.

Folks who tell you that DNA testing will cure the problem of executing the innocent should think again. None of these three innocence cases involved DNA evidence.

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