Convicted Smuggler Given Life

JMC reported yesterday that the jury continued to deliberate in a human smuggling case.  CNN has reported that the verdict is in.  A truck driver was sentenced to life in prison Thursday, avoiding a death sentence for his role in the United States’ deadliest human smuggling attempt in which 19 illegal immigrants died from the heat inside a sweltering tractor-trailer. A jury deliberated for 5-1/2 days before sentencing Tyrone Williams, 35, himself an immigrant from Jamaica. The jury could have also chosen to sentence him to death or to a lengthy prison term that would have been determined by the judge.Williams’ life sentence comes with no possibility for parole. In May 2003, his tractor-trailer was packed with more than 70 immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic. As temperatures skyrocketed inside the airtight refrigerator truck, the immigrants kicked walls, clawed at insulation, broke out taillights and screamed for help.  Click here for more on this story.

This is a tough case.  The deaths were shocking.  Several other defendants were convicted of crimes.  Williams, however, is the only one against whom the prosecution sought the death penalty.  All in all, I found this case troublesome on several different levels.

KJ