One of the researchers involved in a well-known prison experiment that used Stanford University students as test subjects is expected to testify Thursday that a former Schofield Barracks soldier would not have abused and tortured his 5-year-old daughter without pressure from his wife.
Naeem Williams, 34, is facing a death sentence in U.S. District Court for killing his daughter Talia at their Wheeler Army Airfield military family quarters in 2005 through chronic child abuse.
Craig Haney, a social psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Clara, is one of more than 30 people on the defense’s list of witnesses who are expected to testify against imposing the death penalty. The list includes Williams’ relatives, high school friends, old girlfriends, staff and fellow inmates at the Federal Detention Center Honolulu.
Haney testified Wednesday that Williams has only a few of the risk factors associated with people who commit violent criminal acts, including low academic performance and having been physically and mentally abused while growing up.
Haney is expected to testify Thursday that the only time Williams displayed violence was during a seven-month period in 2004 and 2005 during which his wife, Delilah Williams, pressured him because of their marital problems and because of Talia’s special needs.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright referred to it as "the Delilah defense."
Terrance Muse said that before his cousin Naeem and Delilah moved to Hawaii in 2004, he saw that Delilah was the dominant one in the marriage.
"One time I told him, ‘You need to put your man pants on," Muse said.
Other relatives testified that Williams suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather, Uyless Muse.
Astin Muse, described as Naeem’s sister, said her father used belts and switches, then later his hands and fists, almost daily to discipline her and Naeem but that her brother’s beatings were "a little more extreme."
Haney has been studying the psychological effects of prison conditions for more than 30 years. He was one of the researchers in the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 in which students were randomly assigned roles as prisoners and prison guards. After just six days, the student guards were subjecting student prisoners to psychological torture, the student prisoners were passively accepting it, and some, at the request of the guards, were harassing other prisoners.
