First death penalty trial to open in girl’s murder

The first death penalty case to go in front of a jury in Hawaii starts with opening statements Tuesday.

Former Schofield Barracks soldier Naeem J. Williams is standing trial in U.S. District Court on a charge of capital murder for the July 2005 beating death of his 5-year-old daughter, Talia Emoni Williams.

The Honolulu Medical Examiner said Talia died as a result of head trauma due to battered-child syndrome.

Under Hawaii law, there is no capital punishment, which was abolished by the territorial Legislature in 1957.

But Williams, 34, if convicted, would face execution under federal law. The indictment charges him with killing a child through abuse or as part of a "pattern and practice of assault and torture."

Prompted by the Williams case, the Interfaith Alliance Hawaii took its first formal position against the death penalty Saturday.

"The crime that was committed was horrific," the Rev. Barbara Grace Ripple, an alliance member and a retired United Methodist minister, said by telephone Saturday. "But at the same time I have learned in my 70 years of living, ‘An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind,’ as I think Gandhi said. I really believe that taking a life is not ours to do. All life is precious, and one of the things that the Interfaith Alliance believes is that when we take away a life in supposed payment for another life taken, then that does not allow that individual to turn his life around, to make up for what has been done, to find out that his life is worth something, too, and a chance to make recompense."

More than seven years have passed since a federal grand jury returned the indictment against Williams and his wife, Delilah, charging them with murder. The original defense lawyer has since left practice and the original judge assigned to the case is in semi-retirement.

Much of the pretrial legal maneuvers by the Williams defense team involved the hiring of mental health experts to examine the former soldier and offer expert opinions on his mental capacity to intentionally kill or appreciate the consequences of his actions.

The defense team attempted to get the court to throw out the death penalty before trial by presenting reports and testimony from experts who say that Williams lacks the mental capacity to understand the punishment and why it can be imposed on him.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright, who is presiding over the trial, rejected the request to throw out the death penalty on Thursday.

The legal teams in federal death penalty cases have to include lawyers certified by the court to handle such cases.

Two-thirds of Williams’ defense team are death penalty specialists from San Francisco. The lead prosecutor is from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in Washington, D.C.

Attorneys in the Williams case began questioning prospective jurors in January.

Kenneth Lawson, associate director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, noted that someone who considers the death penalty immoral can be disqualified from serving on the jury. But that raises another troubling issue.

"How do you get a jury of all of your peers when the only ones who can sit on there are those who believe in capital punishment?" he said.

Honolulu attorney Michael Green says most defense lawyers focus on fighting the death penalty.

"Winning the case is secondary to keeping the guy alive," said Green, who has represented clients in state death penalty cases on the mainland, most recently in Pennsylvania. He said none of his clients was executed.

Delilah Williams, Talia’s stepmother, was also charged with murder but pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors. She’s expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison after she testifies against Williams at his trial, said her federal public defender, Alexander Silvert.

Delilah Williams, 30, is expected to testify that her husband delivered the fatal blow.

Naeem Williams told Army investigators in 2005 that in the five months leading up to Talia’s death, he beat her almost every day with his belt and fist to discipline her. He said on the day of his daughter’s death, he beat her twice.

He told the investigators that in the second beating he hit Talia in the small of her back as punishment for soiling herself. Williams said his daughter fell forward on her knees, then fell onto her face.

Talia lost consciousness and died at Wahiawa General Hospital.

The court sealed seven pages of Delilah Williams’ plea agreement to preserve their right to a fair trial. Lawyers for Naeem Williams and the government argued that the public release of the information would taint the pool of prospective jurors.

And the court ruled that the release could compromise Delilah Williams’ position should the sentencing judge reject her plea agreement and she chooses to go to trial.

Delilah Williams’ lawyer also said his client could face retribution from other inmates if they learned details of her admission.

The court record does, however, contain references to Delilah Williams’ admission to the FBI that she used to beat her stepdaughter with a belt for soiling herself but stopped in April 2005 when Talia started resisting by trying to grab the belt.

Delilah Williams told the FBI that just 17 days before Talia died that she hit the girl with a belt in the face and all over her body.

When Talia fell to the ground, Delilah Williams told the FBI, she stomped on her stepdaughter multiple times, and yelled that she "hated" her, that she was "stupid" and that she had "ruined" her life.

Delilah Williams had given birth to a girl just four months before Talia’s death.

Talia was the product of a brief relationship between Naeem Williams and Tarshia Williams in Orangeburg, S.C., before Naeem joined the Army. Naeem and Tarshia never married.

A South Carolina family court judge awarded custody of Talia to Naeem Williams in 2004. Talia suffered from some health conditions and developmental delays and was not thriving under her mother’s care, the court ruled.

Talia arrived in Hawaii in December 2004 to live with her father and stepmother at Wheeler Army Airfield.

Things evidently went bad fast.

State and federal officials were aware that Talia was a possible victim of child abuse as early as February 2005, when employees of the state Child Welfare Services Branch picked up Talia from the federal child care facility at Schofield Barracks. Workers there called military police after noticing marks on the girl’s body suggesting abuse.

Tarshia Williams sued the federal government in 2008, claiming that active duty military and federal government employees received or were aware of other reports of Talia’s abuse but failed to notify the appropriate state agencies as required by an agreement between the military and the state Department of Human Services.

Her lawyer, Mark Davis, says a civil lawsuit is on hold pending the outcome of the criminal prosecution of Naeem Williams.

Tarshia has stated that she wants to be in Hawaii for the trial.

Davis says because of a protective order in the civil case, his client is prohibited from speaking about either case.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.