Updated Friday, Sept. 6, to include information on when the new trial must commence, or otherwise allow for Williams’ release until the trail begins.
Nine years after he was convicted by a Lebanon County jury of first-degree murder and 19 other offenses resulting from a 2014 drug-related shooting, Eddie Williams has been granted a new trial by a federal court because his absent co-defendant’s confession was read to the jury.
The crime
Prosecutors allege that on March 10, 2014, Williams and two accomplices, Rick Cannon and Akeita Harden, drove to a Lebanon apartment complex to settle a drug-related dispute. Police, responding to a report of gunshots there, found Marcus Ortiz dead and Keith Crawford wounded.
Outside the complex, a responding officer saw two men enter a car driven by a woman. They were later identified as Williams, Cannon, and Harden. A vehicular chase followed, and eventually all three were caught.
All three were charged in Lebanon County court in connection with the shooting. Williams was charged with 20 offenses, including first-degree murder, conspiracy, and aggravated assault.
2015 trial
In October 2015, a jury in the courtroom of Judge Samuel Kline found Williams guilty of all 20 charges, including the murder charge. Kline sentenced him to life in prison that December.
Cannon, charged with the same 20 offenses, had given a written confession to murder, pleaded guilty, and been sentenced before the start of Williams’ trial in October 2015.
In his opening statement at the trial, Williams’ lawyer told the jury that Cannon, not Williams, was the shooter, citing the confession Cannon had earlier given. District Attorney David Arnold objected, arguing that, given the wording of the murder charge against Cannon, it was a mischaracterization of the facts to say that it was known for certain that Cannon, not Williams, was the person who pulled the trigger.
Apparently to clear up any confusion, Kline decided to read the murder charge against Cannon to the jury, but then went on to read the other 19 charges against Cannon, telling the jury that Cannon had confessed to all. Nine of those charges clearly named Williams as Cannon’s co-conspirator.
Post-conviction appeals and award of new trial
In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bruton v. United States that an accused person is deprived of his constitutional right to confront witnesses against him when a non-testifying co-defendant’s confession naming him as a participant in the crime is introduced at trial.
In other words, a defendant on trial can’t challenge the incriminating confession of a co-defendant who is not present in court to be cross-examined.
After the jury convicted him, Williams filed a series of unsuccessful appeals in Pennsylvania state courts, alleging that his trial attorney was ineffective for a number of reasons, including letting the jury hear that Cannon had confessed to all 20 charges against him. In 2020, after those appeals failed, he turned to the federal courts.
In May 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania agreed with Williams on the single ground that Kline was wrong to tell the jury that Cannon had confessed to all charges against him, including the nine that named Williams as a co-conspirator.
The Lebanon County District Attorney then appealed to the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
On August 13, 2024, the 3rd Circuit court dismissed the D.A.’s appeal, agreeing that Kline’s reading of all the charges against Cannon and his telling the jury that that was “what [Mr. Cannon] did” and that “[a]ll counsel . . . agreed that he [Cannon] pled guilty to all of these charges” in essence improperly admitted a confession of Williams’ co-defendant, who was not in court to be cross-examined by Williams’ attorney.
Unless appealed further by the D.A., the ruling in effect vacates Williams’ conviction and awards him a new trial.
On September 4, in response to the 3rd Circuit’s new trial award, Judge Robert Mariani of the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg issued an order requiring the District Attorney to either start Williams’ retrial in 60 days or release him from custody until a new trial begins.
District Attorney’s reaction
On Sept. 4, Lebanon County D.A. Pier Hess Graf issued a statement referring to the federal court’s decision as a “procedural technicality.”
Hess Graf’s statement said, in part, “[t]he appeal stems from a procedural decision made during trial. Williams’ trial lawyer argued his innocence because [Cannon] pled guilty months prior. Then-District Attorney David Arnold objected and asked the Trial Judge to explain [Cannon’s] plea. The Court explained [Cannon] pled guilty as a co-conspirator and as an accomplice – which did not eliminate Williams as the guilty party for murder.”
Hess Graf also implied that her office would not appeal the new trial award, instead saying “[i]n 2014, our Office fought for the conviction of each person responsible. Ten years later, we will fight for the conviction again.”
Hess Graf had not responded by publication time to a Thursday morning request for comment left at her office.
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