93 Years Ago, PA Executed An Innocent 16-Year-Old Kid. Now It's Time For Some Payback.
His family is filing a lawsuit. Good.
In 1931, Alexander McClay Williams — Black, 16 years old, 4’7”, 91 lbs and innocent — was executed for the murder of Vida Robare, a 33-year-old white woman who worked as a matron at the Glen Mills School for Boys in Thornbury Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where he was a student.
There were no witnesses, no evidence. Police didn’t even bother to find out that she had recently divorced her husband Fred, who worked with her at the school, on the grounds of “extreme cruelty.” Instead of looking literally anywhere else, they interrogated this child multiple times without a parent or lawyer present until he “confessed,” put him on trial where he was convicted by an all white jury and then sent him to the electric chair just five months later. He was the youngest person in Pennsylvania history to be put to death.
On Monday, 93 years later, his surviving family members announced their plans to file a civil suit against Delaware County and the state of Pennsylvania.
Williams had his conviction vacated in 2017 and the charges against him were officially dropped in 2022, thanks to the work of (get out your Kleenex) Dr. Sam Lemon, the great-grandson of his original lawyer, William Henry Ridley, the first Black attorney in Delaware County. Dr. Lemon worked for 30 years to gather enough evidence to prove that Williams was innocent, found evidence that the detectives and prosecutors covered up evidence and coerced a truly bizarre confession out of Williams involving shoe polish thievery and a vendetta against Fred Robare.
The suit was filed by attorney Joseph Marrone on behalf of Susie Carter, Williams’s sister, who spoke to the Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday:
Marrone’s lawsuit contends that Williams’ Fourth and 15th Amendment rights were violated by then-Delaware County Detective Michael Trestrall, who ignored Williams’ initial statement that he had nothing to do with Robare’s death and interrogated him six or seven times without a lawyer or parent present.
The suit also names then-Delaware County Assistant District Attorney Louis A. Bloom, who Marrone said ignored important exculpatory evidence, including a large, adult-sized bloody handprint at the scene of Robare’s murder. Bloom also overlooked Robare’s long documented history of abuse by her husband, the last person to see her alive and the first to discover her body, according to the lawsuit.
“The detectives and district attorney were so eager to reach a successful resolution, they snatched Alexander out of nowhere and made him a racial scapegoat,” Marrone said. “A lawsuit like this continues to educate the public and make changes in the justice system so it doesn’t happen again.”
Marrone also noted that it’s not like this is just some old-timey thing that happened in the past and would never happen today. It absolutely happens today, and that should embarrass us. We don’t execute 16-year-olds anymore, but if it were up to the GOP — which has recently been thirsting to expand the death penalty — we probably would.
“I’m seeing this as an opportunity for restorative justice, though it certainly can’t bring back Alexander,” Dr. Lemon said, of the lawsuit. “But not only did he suffer the ultimate punishment, every member of his family was punished over nine decades. That judge’s decision went a long, long way.”
That’s a hell of a thing to have to live with all your life. Hopefully this will go through and it will bring that family some semblance of peace after all these years. Sometimes it is too late to correct mistakes (which is the first reason why the death penalty should be abolished), but it’s still worth it to acknowledge that something was a mistake and to do whatever one can to atone and to work to keep it from happening to someone else.
PREVIOUSLY:
OT: Motherfuck, but I'm overhearing goddamn educators talking about astrology like it fucking means something. This is part of why things don't work in this country - even people who should know better don't.
Yes, there are mistakes we can't correct, and no, we can't do anything to bring back Alexander McClay Williams.
What we can do, I think, is go find the graves of the cops and lawyers involved, dig them up, and take whatever is left of their crumbling skeletons down to the public square and hook them up to machines that make them dance.
It's only fair.