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Alex Williams - Juvenile Death Penalty

Juvenile Death Penalty

On November 25, 2002, Alexander Williams committed suicide in his cell at the Georgia State Prison.

Please read the Associated Press article here


Alex Williams and his sister


Still from an official Department of Corrections video of Alex Williams being forcibly medicated in prison

Mentally ill and juvenile offender Alexander Williams was granted clemency. On February 25, 2002 the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to commute his sentence to life imprisonment.

Please see the end of this document for a selection of clemency letters and news coverage of this case. Please also see the new Amnesty International Urgent Action Alert on this case.

Alexander E. Williams -- who was just 17 years old and mentally ill at the time of his offense, and who remains profoundly mentally ill -- is facing imminent execution in Georgia. He has nearly exhausted all remaining avenues of judicial relief and his fate effectively rests with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. Alex Williams was represented by a lawyer who failed to present to the sentencing jury any of the compelling evidence regarding Alex's youth, severe mental illness, and chronic childhood abuse. His execution would be contrary to American standards of justice, fairness, and decency as well as international law. This is a call for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison.

I. LONG BEFORE HIS TRIAL, ALEX WAS SUFFERING FROM SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS AND HAD BEEN THE VICTIM OF REPEATED ACTS OF VIOLENCE AND ABUSE

Alex Williams has been diagnosed with schizophrenia -- a profound psychotic disorder that affects the processing of thoughts and beliefs and nearly every level of functioning. Alex began having hallucinations and hearing voices several months prior to the crime; his father described Alex as being disconnected from reality and living in a "dream world." Williams believed he was able to communicate with others telepathically and expressed strange and obsessive religious thoughts to family members. For example, he currently believes that actress Sigourney Weaver is God and that she speaks to him. Early in his case, even the prosecution was aware that Alexander was hearing voices and completed a form to request a psychological evaluation. None was ever done prior to his trial or sentencing. While in prison, doctors and corrections officers have reported a history of bizarre behavior including crawling around on his belly in order to communicate with imaginary frogs. Alex is currently being forcibly medicated with powerful anti-psychotic medications.

Alex endured repeated, indeed continuous, physical abuse as a child. While an infant, his mother shook him hard and often. When he was a toddler, she struck him with cooking utensils, sticks, branches, and the spiked edge of her glass shoes. As a child and young adolescent, Alex suffered frequent beatings at the hands of his closest caregivers, his mother and grandmother. Other times, he was punished by what his mother termed "bed restriction" where he would be forced to remain on his bed for days -- sometimes even weeks -- completely isolated from others while receiving only one meal a day. His mother also forced Alex to stand naked outside of his house and locked the front door behind him. He was sexually assaulted by his step father.

II. ALEX'S SENTENCING JURY WAS NEVER INFORMED ABOUT HIS TRAGIC CHILDHOOD AND ITS EFFECTS ON HIS DEVELOPMENT

In the sentencing phase of his case, not one of these critical facts about Alex's childhood or his mental illness was ever presented to the jury. This is the type of evidence -- known as mitigating circumstances -- that jurors are required to consider when deciding between the death penalty and a sentence of life imprisonment.

The entire sentencing presentation by Alex's defense attorney lasted less than 15 minutes. Only two witnesses (his mother -- who had been his most persistent abuser -- and a female friend) were presented by the defense lawyer. All the jury heard was Alex's mother's opinion that he was a good child who liked comic books. There was no testimony from those who knew the details about Alex's abuse, mental illness, and the extraordinary deprivation that he experienced throughout his young life. Nor was there any testimony from mental health professionals who could have explained to the jury the mitigating effects of youth itself as well as the ways in which the horrific abuse, trauma and mental illness characteristic of Alex's childhood profoundly and permanently affected his development.

According to the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, psychological and family disturbances, such as those experienced by Alex, would have seriously "exacerbated the already existing vulnerabilities of his youth." These were facts that would have enabled the jury to understand why he was deserving of a sentence less than the death penalty. A jury that heard the truth about Alex's life may well have reached a different decision; five of the eight surviving jurors have signed affidavits that they would not have sentenced him to death had they known his full history.

III. ALEX WAS REPRESENTED BY AN ATTORNEY WHOSE FAILURES TO DEFEND CASES PROPERLY AND EFFECTIVELY ARE WELL KNOWN IN THE GEORGIA LEGAL COMMUNITY

In the early 1990's, just a few years after Alex's trial, his attorney, O.L. Collins, was officially removed from the list of those qualified to handle criminal cases. In a 1988 hearing in the case of Billy Sunday Birt, another convicted death penalty client, Collins revealed his ignorance of even the most basic principles of criminal law. Collins testified that he knew (only) two criminal cases: "Miranda and Dred Scott," (Dred Scott had nothing to do with criminal law; rather it was the infamous 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case holding that blacks could not be citizens and slaves were merely property.) In yet another case, defense counsel Collins actually argued for the death penalty because that was what his mentally retarded client instructed him to do. Collins was also once publicly reprimanded by the Georgia Supreme Court for ethical violations when he improperly retained a client's funds. (In the Matter of Collins, 246 Ga. 325)

In Alex Williams' case, Collins undertook no investigation and put on the merest pretense of a defense at trial. He often brought out details about the race of various witnesses and participants in the case when race was totally irrelevant to the issues at hand. He made no effort to investigate the details of Alex's life, abuse, and mental illness nor did he present even one mitigating fact to the sentencing jury. Again, his entire presentation of evidence at the sentencing hearing lasted less than15 minutes. His closing argument was rambling and incoherent. Collins did absolutely nothing to inform the jury or to advocate for his client at sentencing -- leaving the jury without compelling, available evidence that would have supported a verdict of life.

IV. EXECUTING JUVENILE OFFENDERS RUNS COUNTER TO BASIC AMERICAN STANDARDS OF DECENCY AND FAIRNESS

The execution of a juvenile offender is contrary to fundamental principles of American justice which punishes according to the degree of culpability and reserves the death penalty for the "worst of the worst" offenders. By their very nature, teenagers are less mature, and therefore less culpable, than adults who commit similar acts but have no such explanation for their conduct. Adolescence is a transitional period of life when cognitive abilities, emotions, judgment, impulse control, and identity are still developing. Indeed, immaturity is the reason we do not allow those under eighteen to assume the major responsibilities of adulthood such as military combat service, voting, entering into contracts, drinking alcohol or making medical decisions. A number of organizations including the American Bar Association, the Child Welfare League of America, the Children's Defense Fund, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Mental Health Association have taken a stand against the juvenile death penalty.

V. EXECUTING JUVENILE OFFENDERS IS CONTRARY TO INTERNATIONAL LAW

In continuing to execute juvenile offenders, the United States acts in defiance of substantial international consensus and law. Indeed, such executions have all but ended around the world, except in the United States. In the last decade, the United States has executed more juvenile offenders than all the world's nations combined. Since 1990, only seven countries are reported to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years of age at the time of the crime: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The nations of Pakistan, and Yemen have since abolished the juvenile death penalty, while Saudi Arabia and Nigeria deny that they have executed juvenile offenders. In the last three years the number of nations that execute juvenile offenders has dropped significantly to only three: Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States. Moreover, just this past year, Iran stated that it no longer executes juvenile offenders while the leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo commuted the death sentences of four juvenile offenders.

The death penalty for juvenile offenders is expressly prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the American Convention of Human Rights. While the United States has not yet ratified the CRC and specifically reserved its right to execute juveniles when ratifying the ICCPR, the execution of Mr. Williams would further alienate the United States from the international community. Moreover, it would further damage our legitimacy as a world leader in the protection and promotion of human rights, particularly the rights of children.

Under Georgia law, the Board of Pardons and Paroles has the exclusive power to commute a sentence of death to life in prison. Please write to:

Mr. Walter S. Ray, Chair
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles
Floyd Veterans Memorial Building
Balcony Level, East Tower
2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, S.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909
Fax: (404) 651-8502
Phone: (404) 656-5651

and

Governor Roy E. Barnes
203 State Capitol
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Fax: (404) 657-7332
Phone: (404) 656-1776

Because the Board of Pardons and Paroles occasionally has problems with its fax machine, please fax a copy of letters sent to the Board to Alex's attorneys at 404/222-9231.

Read a selection of clemency appeals to the Board of Pardons and Paroles requesting that Alex Williams' sentence be commuted to life in prison:

Read a selection of news articles written about this case [please note, many newspapers only post articles for a short time, we will remove links for articles that are no longer available on the web]:

For information on Alex Williams' case from Amnesty International please visit the following web pages:


Please note, we would like to echo the sentiment expressed by Amnesty International that, "In campaigning to stop this execution, Amnesty International in no way wishes to excuse the murder of Aleta Bunch or to belittle the immeasurable suffering that her untimely and violent death has caused her family and friends. It seeks only that the state find a better response than to perpetuate the cycle of violence, and in doing so that it uphold basic principles of justice and humanity in force throughout the world."