WASHINGTON ¨C The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a death-row inmate in a ruling warning of the hazards of judicial bias, slamming Pennsylvania¡¯s former chief justice for not stepping aside in a murder case in which he earlier had served as a prosecutor.
The court¡¯s 5-3 decision gave Terrance Williams, convicted in the 1984 bludgeoning murder of a 56-year-old man in Philadelphia, a fresh chance to challenge his death sentence before the state¡¯s top court due to now-retired Judge Ronald Castille¡¯s actions.
¡°Where a judge has had an earlier significant, personal involvement as a prosecutor in a critical decision in the defendant¡¯s case, the risk of actual bias in the judicial proceeding rises to an unconstitutional level,¡± Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the ruling.
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