HOUSTON, TX -- Jamaican migrant Tyrone Williams will have to spend the holidays in his prison cell pondering whether he will live or die.
The sentencing phase of the retrial was on Friday postponed until January 2, 2007. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal made the decision after hearing from attorneys on both sides, following the illness of Williams' lead attorney, Craig Washington.
Washington became ill last Wednesday, forcing a postponement in the case. But Oliver Sprott, another one of Williams' attorneys, told the judge Friday that Washington is still very ill and it’s unclear when he could return. Sprott also said he did not want to proceed with Washington.
Judge Rosenthal also took into consideration the upcoming holidays, noting that some jurors would not be available to work between Dec. 21 and Dec. 29.
The 35-year-old Williams was found guilty of all 58 counts of conspiracy, harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. Nineteen of the 70 Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic migrants Williams had piled into his airtight trailer-tractor died in 2003 during the illegal smuggling attempt from South Texas to Houston.
The jury of seven women and five men agreed on the guilty verdict following just about five days of deliberation. On Dec. 6th, they began deliberating whether Williams, should be sentenced to death or receive life in prison, until Washington's suddent illness forced a postponment.
Washington last week had expressed disappointment with the verdict but the Schenectady, N.Y. defendant showed no reaction when the guilty verdict was read. He was later led away by U.S. marshals.
Prosecutors did not comment on the verdict though they have been pushing for the death penalty during this retrial following the rejection of the jury’s decision last year by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Last year a jury convicted Williams on 38 transporting counts, but he avoided a death sentence. The Court of Appeals claimed the verdict didn't count because the jury failed to specify Williams’ role in the crime.
Williams is the lone person in the case facing the death penalty. Seven others have been sentenced to prison while sentencing for three more is pending. Two had charges against them dismissed, and one man remains on the lam. His lawyer had argued race in the first case but was banned from that line of argument in this retrial.
