Carl's fight for justice!
Juvenile Lifer Carl Williams fight to gain freedom!
#support IL House Bill 2515
Carl Williams is someone who was taken to a police station in the city of Chicago in 1994 where he was subject to physical and psychological abuse at the hands of members of the Chicago Police Department.
In 1994, it was known that Chicago police officers were taking young teens to area police stations and torturing confessions out of them. This fact was made known as early as 1980 through the arrest of Al Travis, a 15 year old boy who was taken to Chicago’s Area 2 Violent Crime Unit and tortured until he confessed to a crime. It was also made known through the case of People V. Mark Clements in 1981, when he was taken to Chicago’s Area 3 Violent Crime Unit and tortured.
In 2002 laws changed, requiring the entire interrogation of children to be videotaped as well as affording these children access to attorneys before a confession could be taken. Most children taken to police stations prior to 2002 are children who were sadly victimized by that criminal justice system and 17 year old Carl Williams is one of many children that was confronted with the Devil inside a Chicago Police Station through the form of someone that is paid to protect him, the Chicago Police.
Chicago Police and Cook County prosecutors alleged that in 1994 Carl Williams and four other young men were accused and later convicted of abducting Reginald Wilson and his girlfriend, Felicia Lewis from a Southside gas station in 1994, sexually assaulting Lewis and shooting both to death after forcing them into a large trash bin.
More than two decades later, Carl Williams, now 40, and his lawyers have built a case based on sworn affidavits from key witnesses and Williams’ co-defendants stating that Williams was not involved in the crime in spite of a confession he was forced to make but disavowed. The Illinois Appellate Court has said that Williams should be given a hearing to present that evidence.
Now, he hopes to add a new element involving Pamela Fish, . According to Williams' lawyer, Michael Sklar, Fish played a crucial role in the conviction. She testified that the results of her DNA tests of semen from Lewis' body were inconclusive, leaving open the possibility that Williams might be its source. Later DNA testing, however, excluded Williams and his codefendants as the sources of the semen.
Innocence must matter! However in this case, Williams and his co/defendants have been labelled guilty based off of faulty evidence that was used against them during the course of their trial. Here are some of the bullet points that stick out in the Williams case:
Williams was tried based off of evidence that was collected and tested by Pam Fish. Who is Pam, someone that you need to know
Williams was abused by Chicago police officers inside the interrogation room
Williams co/defendants have let the court system know that WILLIAMS played no role with the crime and that they did not even know him
Chicago police have a systematic patterns of falsely matching up people as co/defendants with criminal activity
Williams was a juvenile 17 years old sentence to the Illinois Department of Corrections with a mandatory natural life sentence without parole, in which our U.S. Supreme court have declared unconstitutional pursuant to Miller V. Alabama
Williams has been incarcerated for a total of 23 plus years.
People V. Carl Williams was reversed for a hearing before the Cook county criminal court in 2012. People V. Williams court decision 2012
Carl WIlliams is waiting for justice, when will it come!
The Campaign to End Torture, Mothers against Wrongful Conviction, and the families against police torture, request that you please sign this petition in support of Carl Williams innocence and that calls on the Cook County State’s Attorney Office under the administration of Kim Foxx to immediately dismiss the charges against Carl Williams.
How Illinois Law is structured, Carl Williams was a juvenile, and juveniles taken police custody must be afforded with the law. Read it:
Section 5-6(2) provides:
"(2) A law enforcement officer who takes a minor into custody without a warrant under Section 5-5 shall, if the minor is not released, immediately make a reasonable attempt to notify the parents or other person legally responsible for the minor's care or the person with whom the minor resides that the minor has been taken into custody and where the minor is being held; and the law enforcement officer shall without unnecessary delay take the minor to the nearest juvenile police officer designated for such purposes in the county of venue or shall surrender the minor to a juvenile police officer in the city or village where the offense is alleged to have been committed." 705 ILCS 405/5-6 (West 1992).
This law is often ignored by police to afford them opportunity and space to cover up their acts of misconduct toward suspects that are charged with very serious offenses as was Carl. He was sentenced to natural life without parole and currently sits behind a prison wall at the Stateville Correctional Center, in Joliet, IL wondering if the criminal justice system will ever get it right and to allow him what he deserve, his long awaited freedom.
Sign the petition to send a strong message to the criminal justice system that kids like Carl can and shall not be treated as political footballs by the system to imprison them based off of evidence that is incomplete and Presumptuous. I say #FREECARLWILLIAMS because #tortureisacrime
By:
TEAM CARL WILLIAMS
Contact the Campaign to End Torture (CET)
248-648-1708
