Thread: Smuggler's mother begs for his life

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/05/truck ... index.html
Smuggler's mother begs for his life

POSTED: 4:43 p.m. EST, January 5, 2007


HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- The mother of a truck driver who faces a possible death sentence for his role in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants in a sweltering trailer tearfully pleaded with a jury in Texas to spare her son's life.

"Please, please, please don't take the life of my son," Dorothy Williams said Thursday. "I know it was an accident and he can't take it back."

Tyrone Williams, 35, was convicted last month for his role in the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt. He cried Thursday as his mother broke down on the witness stand during the trial's punishment phase, and several jurors and defense attorneys also wiped away tears.

Testimony resumed Friday as family friends from Jamaica, where the truck driver was born, described him as a good person.

"I need you to know that he is a person of compassion," said a tearful Claudette Forbes, who has known Williams for 30 years and baby-sat him as a child. "He's kind and loving and caring."

More than 70 immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic had been packed in Williams' trailer; 19 died of dehydration, overheating and suffocation after nearly four hours inside the oven-like container.

Williams was convicted of 58 counts of conspiracy, harboring and transporting immigrants in his trailer, which he abandoned near Victoria, Texas, on the way from South Texas to Houston in 2003. Jurors must decide whether to sentence Williams to death or up to life in prison.

Dorothy Williams told jurors about her son's childhood in his native Jamaica, describing him as a good boy who always liked to make people laugh and loved cooking and playing soccer.

The convicted man's sister, Coretta Williams, described him as a hard worker who inspired her to go back to school and eventually get a master's degree.

"My brother is a decent human being," she said.

Prosecutors presented tearful testimony from relatives of the victims earlier in the trial's sentencing phase, which began Tuesday.

Prosecutors have said Williams should be executed because by not freeing the immigrants, he intentionally committed an act of violence that caused the deaths.

Craig Washington, Williams' lead attorney, has told jurors his client never intended for the immigrants to die. Washington blamed the deaths on other members of the smuggling ring who overstuffed the trailer, but his client is the only defendant among 14 charged in the case who is facing the death penalty.

Several federal prison officials and guards at the Federal Detention Center in Houston testified Thursday that Williams was a model inmate and could be rehabilitated.

Williams is a Jamaican citizen who lived in Schenectady, New York.

This was the second time he was tried for the smuggling deaths.

Last year, a jury convicted him on 38 transporting counts, but he avoided a death sentence because the jury could not agree on his role in the smuggling attempt. The jury deadlocked on the 20 other counts.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the decision, saying the verdict did not count because the jury failed to specify his role in the crime.

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More than 70 immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic had been packed in Williams' trailer; 19 died of dehydration, overheating and suffocation after nearly four hours inside the oven-like container.

This was the second time he was tried for the smuggling deaths.

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