When the FBI Comes Calling…®
March 22, 2005
Jury deliberations in immigrant smuggling deaths drag into 2nd day (3rd Edition)
By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press Writer The Associated Press
HOUSTON - A second day of jury deliberations failed to produce a verdict Tuesday in the trial of a New York man accused of driving and abandoning an airtight trailer packed with more than 70 illegal immigrants.
Jurors have deliberated 14 hours over two days in the trial of Tyrone Williams. They were scheduled to resume their work on Wednesday.
Williams could face the death penalty if convicted for his role in the May 2003 smuggling attempt in which 19 of the passengers died. He is charged with 58 counts of conspiracy, harboring and transporting illegal immigrants.
On Tuesday, the jury asked U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore if they needed to decide whether Williams intended to harm or endanger the victims during the smuggling attempt. Their question related to 19 counts Williams faces for transporting illegal immigrants. Those counts are not eligible for the death penalty.
Discussion among Gilmore and lawyers in the case indicated jurors were confused about whether they needed to determine if Williams intended to hurt the immigrants or whether he simply caused it. She said the jurors only needed to worry about cause.
"That is the issue at hand. I understand what they are struggling with," Gilmore said. She denied another jury request for a dictionary.
Douglas McNabb, a criminal defense lawyer not involved in the case, said it may take awhile for a verdict because jurors will have to unanimously agree on each of the 58 counts.
"Unless it's really a slam dunk for the prosecutors ... it's going to take some time to do," he said.
If the jury convicts Williams on any of the 20 counts eligible for the death penalty, it will hear more evidence against him in the punishment phase of the trial then decide whether he should be executed.
If Williams is convicted only on counts not eligible for the death penalty, Gilmore will sentence him.
Prosecutors told jurors that Williams ignored the immigrants' screams for help as he transported them in his airtight tractor-trailer. A smuggling ring paid him $7,500 for the journey.
They said he abandoned the sweltering trailer at a truck stop in Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston. Seventeen people died inside the trailer. Two others died later.
Williams' attorney, Craig Washington, has said his client was guilty of transporting the immigrants, but that other members of the smuggling ring were responsible for the deaths because they loaded the trailer with too many people.
Williams, 34, a Jamaican citizen who lives in Schenectady, N.Y., is the only one of 14 defendants who could get the death penalty. Federal law allows capital punishment in fatal smuggling cases.
Washington said Williams is the only one who faces capital punishment because he is black. His attorneys took their concerns to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. Prosecutors said he faces such a punishment because he alone could have freed the immigrants.
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