4-3 board vote urges ’92 killer be spared
Posted on Wednesday, August 6, 2008
In a 4-3 decision, citing “unusual circumstances,” the Arkansas Parole Board recommended that Frank Williams Jr. should be granted clemency and spared from execution.
Williams is scheduled to die Sept. 9 for the 1992 shooting death of Lafayette County farmer Clyde Spence, for whom Williams had worked under a prison work-release program.
The board voted late Monday after hearings at the Varner Supermax Unit near Grady and in Little Rock. On Tuesday afternoon, the votes were announced and delivered to Gov. Mike Beebe, who will make the final decision.
In the space for comments on his voting sheet, Parole Board Chairman Leroy Brownlee wrote “should serve life w / o” parole, “unusual circumstances.” He did not elaborate.
Board members Abraham Carpenter Jr., Richard Mays Jr. and Joseph Peacock concurred.
Williams’ attorney, assistant federal public defender Julie Brain, argued at the hearing at Varner that Williams should be spared because he is mentally retarded.
“We’re def initely very pleased that the board voted to recommend clemency and very much hope that the governor will follow suit,” Brain said Tuesday.
Brent Haltom, prosecuting attorney for Lafayette and Miller counties, said he will urge Beebe to allow the execution to go forward.
“I certainly don’t mind my name being associated with him getting the death penalty, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see that he gets it,” Haltom said. “I wouldn’t have asked the jury to give him the death penalty if I didn’t think he deserved it.” Beebe, who has granted clemency only once since taking office last year, will “take the recommendation into consideration, along with all the other input we’re receiving,” spokesman Matt DeCample said. He added that it’s the governor’s policy not to discuss petitions for clemency that are under review.
Williams, 42, shot and killed Spence, who was 49, after being fired from Spence’s farm for breaking a tractor.
A mental evaluation commissioned by Brain found that Williams is mildly retarded, but a court has never ruled on the issue.
His sentence in 1993 came a month before then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker signed a law banning death sentences for the retarded.
In June 2002, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that such executions are barred under the constitutional Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. But in a request for federal review two months later, Williams’ courtappointed attorney, Alvin Schay of Little Rock, didn’t raise the issue.
By the time Brain took over the case in 2004, the federal district and appeals courts said the issue couldn’t be considered because of a law barring multiple requests for review.
Several advocacy groups for the disabled have sent Beebe letters urging him to grant clemency. On Tuesday, The Arc of the United States, which provides advocacy and services for the developmentally disabled, issued a statement asking Beebe to follow the Parole Board’s recommendation.
“The Arc has great sympathy for the family and friends of the victim,” the group said. “However, The Arc believes that in the case of a defendant with mental retardation, such as Williams, the death penalty is not an acceptable or fair sentence.” Haltom and relatives of Spence dispute the contention that Williams is retarded. Beebe has said a defendant’s retardation is an issue for courts to decide.
Brain also contends that Williams, who is black, is the victim of racial discrimination. Her petition for clemency notes that the four people who have been sentenced to death since 1990 in the judicial district that includes Lafayette County have all been black and had white victims.
Haltom has denied any discrimination and says blacks are well-represented on juries in Lafayette County. Williams’ jury included five blacks and seven whites.
The three black board members — Brownlee, Carpenter and Mays — were among those recommending clemency.
In their voting sheets recommending clemency be denied, board members Carolyn Robinson and John Belken put check marks next to the reason “nature and seriousness of the offense.” Member John Felts checked “injustice alleged not sustained,” as did Belken. Robinson also checked “sentence is not considered excessive.” None of the board members were in their offices Tuesday afternoon. Brownlee didn’t return a call seeking comment.
Williams is the first inmate scheduled for execution after a U. S. Supreme Court ruling in April that upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection. Arkansas’ last execution was in 2005.
In addition to his clemency bid, Williams has signed onto lawsuits contending that Arkansas’ injection procedures don’t conform to the Supreme Court ruling and were developed without public notice.
The last time a death row inmate was granted clemency in Arkansas was in 1999, when then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted the death sentence of Bobby Ray Fretwell after a juror came forward and said he had felt pressured by fellow jurors to vote for the death sentence.
Susie Grissom, a juror in Williams’ case, made a similar claim before the Parole Board on Monday, saying she had heard rumors that jurors could face retaliation unless they voted for a death sentence.
Haltom, the prosecutor, denied any “atmosphere of vigilantism” during the trial and said Grissom didn’t voice any concerns at the time.
“There’s not that attitude down here and there never was,” Haltom said. “That’s all just cooked up to try to get this guy off.”
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