Response in Opposition to the Commonwealth's Motion to Vacate

was actually threatened with prosecution for the Donna Friedman homicide in an effort to mold hisaccount.) Two other Commonwealth witnesses, Reverend Charles Poindexter and Mamie Norwood,attested to Mr. Norwood's good character, when in fact they had told the Commonwealth that thetruth was otherwise.Prosecutor Foulkes relied on Mrs. Norwood's and Reverend Poindexter's sanitized testimonyabout Mr. Norwood, and Mr. Draper's coached testimony about the circumstances of the offense,to argue that Mr. Williams killed Mr. Norwood "for no other reason but that a kind man offered hima ride home," that Mr. Williams had "taken two ... innocent lives," and that Mr. Williams "had noreason to commit these crimes." NT 1873, 1876-1877. When prosecutor Foulkes gave this false andmisleading statement to the jury, Mr. Williams' testimony had already been rejected by the jury. Thecalculus of a reasonable defense counsel's strategic decisions had thus changed. See Florida v.Nixon, 543 U.S. 175, 191 (2004). As in Banks, the actual circumstances and underlying motives inthis offense would have put the penalty phase case "in such a different light as to nndermineconfidence in the verdict." Banks, 540 U.S. at 698.The Commonwealth asserts repeatedly that because Mr. Williams was aware of his abuse atthe hands of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Norwood there was no duty on the part of the Commonwealthto turn over evidence of that abuse. The Commonwealth's argument is plainly erroneous for severalreasons.The notion that any time a criminal defendant knows a particular piece of information, theCommonwealth is somehow relieved of its Brady obligations is absurd on its face and is not the law.Under the Commonwealth's theory, the prosecution would have no duty to turn over a witnessstatement that places the defendant in a different city at the time ofthe crime because the defendant34