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Convicted of Triple Murder, Sentenced to Die, Exonerated After 17 Years in Prison

Today, the memorial service for executed death row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams will be held in Los Angeles. Last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied William's bid for clemency. He was executed by lethal injection. Williams spent 24 years on death row after being convicted of four murders. Though he was co-founder of the Crips, one of the country's most notorious street gangs, once in prison he became a vocal advocate against gang violence, a children's author and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Williams and his supporters maintained his innocence up until his death.

Today, a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive. We spend the hour with Harold C. Wilson. Convicted of three murders, he spent more than 17 years in prison, most of the time on death row. Last month, he was exonerated after DNA evidence proved his innocence. He joined us yesterday in our firehouse studio for an extended conversation.

In 1989, a Pennsylvania jury sentenced him to death. Three times: once for each murder. After a decade on death row, in 1999, Wilson's death sentence was overturned due to ineffective counsel.

That lawyer Willis Berry has since become a judge. Despite having his death sentence overturned, Wilson's murder convictions were not - and he remained on death row.

Wilson was originally prosecuted by former Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon. In 1997, the courts began examining Philadelphia's jury selection process after McMahon's role in a training tape was revealed. That year, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, who was in a tight re-election campaign with McMahon, released a training video showing McMahon instructing colleagues to keep poor blacks off juries saying they were less likely to convict.

In 2003 a trial court granted Wilson a new trial after it found that McMahon had used racial bias to eliminate black jurors. Harold Wilson's second trial was a mistrial. Then, on October 31st 2005, Wilson's final trial began. DNA evidence was presented for the first time. On November 15th, Wilson was acquitted of all charges and set free.

AMY GOODMAN: Today we bring you a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive. We spend the hour with Harold C. Wilson. He was convicted of three murders. He spent more than 17 years in prison, most of the time on death row. Last month he was exonerated based on D.N.A. evidence. He joined us yesterday in our Firehouse studio for an extended conversation. In 1989 a Pennsylvania jury sentenced him to death, three times, once for even murder. This is Harold's story.

HAROLD WILSON: Standing in front of the judge being sentenced to death three times, I felt a shock from my toes to the top of my head. It took my breath away, and I went in shock. I didn't realize the sentence of death.

AMY GOODMAN: This was death three times for three murders.

HAROLD WILSON: Three times for three murders. And I didn't realize I was in shock until after I went upstate to Graterford Penitentiary like maybe two weeks, three weeks after. But it was like something had invaded my body, my spirit, when he announced the sentence of death, execution. At that time, it was supposed to be electrocution, at that time, would go through my body until I'm dead. I forget the actual voltage. But I'm in shock, going in shock, and I can feel the shock through my body, and he's telling me that I'm going to be -- he's giving out three verdicts, three punishments of death, and I'm standing up there in shock, thinking, like, ‘How can he do that? How is it possible to die three times by electrocution?’ Survival. You asked about survival on death row? You have to be physical, spiritual, and you have to keep your mind open to the real reality of life, thinking about your loved ones and the memories of the past, you know, the holidays, which you do not generally enjoy on Pennsylvania death row.

AMY GOODMAN: Harold Wilson was frequently held in solitary confinement for extended periods of time. After a decade on death row, in 1999, Wilson’s death sentence was overturned due to ineffective counsel. I asked him about the conditions of his detention and where he was when he learned his death sentence, though not convictions, was overturned.

HAROLD WILSON: I was never taken off of death row. I remained on death row even though the courts, Pennsylvania courts, Court of Common Pleas on a post-conviction relief petition found counsel ineffective for failing to investigate. I still remained on death row, because this is the practice of Pennsylvania.

AMY GOODMAN: Even though they overturned your sentence?

HAROLD WILSON: Even though they overturned my sentence of death, I remained on death row at SCI Green amongst all the rest of the condemned inmates and prisoners.

AMY GOODMAN: Who told you that they had overturned the death penalty? And where were you in the prison?

HAROLD WILSON: I received notice in the mail from my litigating attorneys, Rob Dunham, Mary Hanson.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you remember the moment?

HAROLD WILSON: The moment --

AMY GOODMAN: That you learned?

HAROLD WILSON: Yeah, I do.

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you?

HAROLD WILSON: I believe I was in a restricted housing unit at the time.

AMY GOODMAN: That means you were in solitary confinement, in the hole?

HAROLD WILSON: I'm in solitary confinement in a restricted housing unit, serving 30 days D.C. time for disobeying a direct order, covering my vent, protecting myself from the freezing cold temperatures, which was a practice not only in S.C.I. Green, but what be called at Abu Brigs [sic].

AMY GOODMAN: Abu Ghraib?

HAROLD WILSON: Abu Ghraib.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?

HAROLD WILSON: I mean the freezing cold temperatures, a cold that was used as a punishment to silence most of the condemned, if not silence most of the condemned, to put you in a sickly state where you had to totally depend on its medical department.

AMY GOODMAN: So, in your cell, they made it extremely cold?

HAROLD WILSON: Extremely cold.

AMY GOODMAN: And you were trying to cover the vent?

HAROLD WILSON: Well, I wasn't trying. I did it. And I served numerous D.C. time, numerous misconducts. I was serving numerous misconducts.

AMY GOODMAN: What is D.C. time?

HAROLD WILSON: D.C. time is what they call disciplinary time.

AMY GOODMAN: What did the cold do to you?

HAROLD WILSON: It affected my bones. You know, at some points it was so cold in my cell, the cells that I was placed in, it was so cold that I could scrape the inside window with an ink pen, I could scrape ice off the inside of the window. And a lot of times I had to sleep in my clothes. I couldn't wash up at the sink because the temperatures were unbearable.

AMY GOODMAN: When you say sleep in your clothes, you mean all your clothes at once?

HAROLD WILSON: All the clothes that was issued a condemned inmate or prisoner, death row inmate, all the clothes that was issued at that time, I had to sleep in them. I had to wear them. I had to eat with them on. I had to --

AMY GOODMAN: What were those clothes, how many?

HAROLD WILSON: At that time, you were issued two pair of pants, two shirts and a summer jacket. You were allowed to own a pair of thermals, one pair of thermals, and personal socks. I made my personal socks, the thick wool hunting socks. And you had to use those clothes to survive. There was some inmates that I remember, one, George Banks, he used to put paper bags – he was a worker. They made him an inmate worker. He used to put paper bags in his sheets in his bed so his body warmth, when he covered up at night, his body warmth would keep him warm throughout the night until he opened up his door again to let him out. And he made paper hats, you know. You have a cloth wool hat that they give you and a skully, I think it’s called, and he used to make a bag out of a hat, and then he’d put the wool hat over the bag. He used to take plastic and put on his feet. And then he’d put three or four pair of socks on. So I wasn't the only one subjected to freezing temperatures in the cell.

AMY GOODMAN: And you would be thrown in the hole in solitary if you covered the vent?

HAROLD WILSON: Yeah, because most inmates wouldn't do that. Like George Banks, he would never do a rule infraction, which is cover a vent, disobeying an order. Most inmates had pacifiers -- TVs, radios and cable -- and those were one of the major tools to pacify death row inmates. The loss of their TV or loss of their cable for 30 days was unthinkable for most. But in my case, I didn't have those shortcomings. I didn't deal with those pacifiers. What was important was why I'm here, what will it take to articulate myself to a level that my attorneys would do what was needed to be done, what was needed to be done was filed in a timely manner.




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