''Williams v. Price'', 343 F.3d 223 (3d Cir. 2003), was a 2003

legal case A legal case is in a general sense a dispute between opposing parties which may be resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process. A legal case is typically based on either civil or criminal law. In most legal cases there are one or mo ...

decided in the

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * East ...

. The

appellant In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

was Ronald A. Williams, an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

er; the suit was brought against James Price, the prison superintendent of State Correctional Institution – Pittsburgh, and D. Michael Fisher, the then- Attorney General of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. The case involved

voir dire (; often ; from an Anglo-Norman phrase meaning "to speak the truth") is a legal phrase for a variety of procedures connected with jury trials. It originally referred to an oath taken by jurors to tell the truth ( la, verum dicere). This term is ...

, a legal process in which potential jurors are asked questions to investigate their suitability for

jury duty Jury duty or jury service is service as a juror in a legal proceeding. Juror selection process The prosecutor and defense can dismiss potential jurors for various reasons, which can vary from one state to another, and they can have a specifi ...

. Williams, serving life imprisonment for

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...

for the 1984 slaying of Archie Bradley in

Cranberry Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania Cranberry Township is a municipality in Butler County, Pennsylvania. The population was 33,096 as of the 2020 census. Cranberry Township is one of the fastest-growing areas of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. History In 1753, George Washingt ...

. Williams alleged that his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury was abridged when jurors lied regarding their racial prejudices during voir dire. State courts had refused to consider the testimony of a witness who stated that a juror had uttered derogatory remarks about African Americans during an encounter in the courthouse after the conclusion of the trial. Samuel Alito, writing the court's opinion, declared that "the state courts' refusal to receive some but not all of this evidence violated Williams's clearly established constitutional rights."''Williams'', 343 F.3d at 225. The opinion granted a

writ In common law, a writ (Anglo-Saxon ''gewrit'', Latin ''breve'') is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, a ...

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

to Williams.

References

External links

* * {{caselaw source , case = ''Williams v. Price'', 343 F.3d 223 (3d Cir. 2003) , courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/783520/ronald-a-williams-v-james-price-superintendent-sci-pittsburgh-d/ , googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8546265788732699747 , justia =https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/343/223/636453/ , openjurist =https://openjurist.org/343/f3d/223 , other_source1 = Third Circuit (slip opinion) , other_url1 =http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/002305p.pdf United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cases 2003 in United States case law United States Sixth Amendment jury case law Butler County, Pennsylvania