Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Jamaican driver faces possible death penalty for migrants' deaths
01-04-2007

HOUSTON, USA (AFP): A Jamaican truck driver convicted for the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants in a truck he was driving in south Texas faced the possible death penalty when his sentencing hearing opened Tuesday.

Tyrone Williams, 35, was convicted by a US jury on December 4 on charges of harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. The charges allow for the death penalty or life in prison in cases where an illegal immigrant dies during a smuggling operation.

About 50 witnesses will testify during the sentencing phase of the trial, which could last a week. The trial had been suspended for a month because Williams' main lawyer, Craig Washington, was sick.

On May 13, 2003, Williams was driving a truck for more than three hours between the Mexico border and the Texas city of Victoria with 85 immigrants in his trailer amid high temperatures outside.

The trip left 19 of the immigrants’ dead, including a five year old boy, of asphyxiation and dehydration.

Washington defended his client Tuesday as a father swept into a smuggling operation run by well-organized and unsavory smugglers.

"He is not the worst of the worst," Washington said, blaming the tragedy on 13 other smugglers being prosecuted in the case.

During the first phase of the trial, his lawyers argued that Williams thought there were about 15 people inside his truck and had not heard their cries for help.

But prosecutor Daniel Rodriguez argued that Williams refused to open the trailer and that his refusal was a deliberate act of violence that deserves the death penalty.