AP: Texas

12/17/2004

By JUAN A. LOZANO  / Associated Press

The attorney for a man authorities say abandoned a tractor-trailer crammed with illegal immigrants during a deadly 2003 smuggling attempt is accusing the federal government of seeking the death penalty because his client is black.

Craig Washington, lawyer for Tyrone Williams, has asked a judge to either bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty or outline why Williams is the only one of 14 defendants in the case facing that punishment.

"In this case, the discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent cry for justice," Washington wrote in a motion submitted Thursday. "Moreover, every other similarly situated individual in the history of the death penalty as it relates to (immigrant) smuggling has been treated differently. Justice demands justice."

Prosecutors argue Williams is facing a death sentence if convicted because as the driver of the rig he was the one person who ultimately had control over whether the immigrants in his trailer lived or died.

Williams, 33, from Schenectady, N.Y., is accused of being paid by a smuggling ring to load more than 70 immigrants into his tractor-trailer and take them from South Texas to Houston in May 2003.

But authorities say Williams abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston, after the immigrants began succumbing to the deadly heat. Seventeen immigrants were found dead inside the trailer. Two died later.

During a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Roberts to provide her a letter from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft explaining his office's refusal to "disclose why you sought the death penalty on this guy, the only black guy, and not on the others."

Gilmore said she would hold Roberts in contempt if she didn't get the letter Friday.

Roberts said he doubted he'd be able to get the letter in time and reiterated the argument he made in a motion late last month. He argued then that "other co-defendants organized and led the conspiracy, but ultimately, none of the co-defendants had control over the (immigrants) once Williams drove away from the initial loading location."

The motion also said releasing additional information on how the government decided to seek the death penalty is "privileged information and not discoverable."

Roberts also told Gilmore the government did not seek the death penalty against Fatima Holloway, the other black defendant. Holloway, who has pleaded guilty, rode in the tractor-trailer with Williams during the smuggling attempt.

In his motion Washington said that according information from Kevin McNally, a federal death penalty resource counsel, 68 people since 1994 have been charged in federal court with immigrant smuggling resulting in death. Williams is alone among them to face the death penalty, he said.

Of the 68, the federal government didn't seek the death penalty against 52 defendants. The cases of 11 still are under review. Two guilty pleas were approved before a decision was made, and two are fugitives.

McNally works for the federally funded Resource Counsel Project, which helps court-appointed and defense attorneys handle federal death penalty cases.

Williams' trial is set to begin Jan. 5. Two other defendants in the case, Victor Jesus Rodriguez and Fredy Giovanni Garcia-Tobar, waited for a jury to resume deliberations in their trial Monday.

Claudia Carrizales de Villa, who was also on trial with Rodriguez and Garcia-Tobar, had her charges dismissed by Gilmore, who said prosecutors failed to prove the case against her.

Five people indicted in the case have pleaded guilty. Four were arrested in Mexico and face trial there, including Rodriguez's parents. The trial of another defendant is on hold.