A defense mental health expert told the federal jury that found Naeem Williams guilty of capital murder that the former Schofield Barracks soldier suffers from a low IQ and impairment to the area of his brain that controls reasoning, planning and problem-solving.
“Mr. Williams (in 2004 and 2005) was suffering from several impairments, intellectual impairment and executive function impair- ment, both made worse by abuse of alcohol,” psychiatrist Pablo Stewart told the U.S. District Court jury Tuesday.
On Thursday the jury found Williams, 34, guilty of killing his 5-year-old daughter, Talia, on July 16, 2005, through child abuse and as a result of months of assault and torture. Stewart was the first witness in the death penalty eligibility phase of the trial.
For Williams to be eligible, jurors must find that he was at least 18 years old when he killed his daughter, acted with intent, and that there was at least one aggravating factor. Williams was 25 years old when his daughter died.
Prosecutor Darren Ching told jurors in opening statements Tuesday that Williams intentionally inflicted serious bodily injury through the frequency, severity and escalation of the beatings he delivered, culminating with a final blow that killed the girl.
Ching said what made the murder worse was that it was “especially heinous, cruel and depraved because it involved serious abuse and torture.”
He said another aggravating factor is that Talia was particularly vulnerable because of her young age.
Defense lawyer Michael Burt said in his opening statement to the jurors that they will hear from five mental health experts, including Stewart, who will say that because of Williams’ borderline intellectual functioning or intellectual disability,
he lacks the mental capacity to satisfy the intent element and the aggravating heinous, cruel and depraved factor. He told the jurors to wait for the court’s instructions and technical definitions before deciding whether Talia was a vulnerable victim.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright ruled in March that defense lawyers had not proved that Williams is mentally retarded, which would have made him ineligible for capital punishment.
The death penalty eligibility phase is expected to last at least two more weeks. If the jury finds Williams eligible, the trial will move on to the next phase, identifying aggravating and mitigating factors.
For the jurors to make a finding of an aggravating factor, the government needs to prove its existence to all of them beyond a reasonable doubt.
The jury can make a finding of a mitigating factor if the defense proves its existence by a preponderance of the information, a lower standard. And it only takes one juror to find the existence of a mitigating factor.
Defense lawyers have informed prosecutors that they intend to present evidence to the jury of 150 mitigating factors.
After the jurors compile their lists of aggravating and mitigating factors, they will then be asked to determine which list outweighs the other. If they find that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, Williams will get the death penalty. If there are no aggravating factors or if the jury finds that the aggravating factors do not outweigh the mitigating ones, Williams will be sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
