so terry williams gets a reprieve. the third degree case gets dismissed. that's a whole story in itself because of prosecutorial misconduct, basically. and he's now fighting the second case for which he's serving a life sentence right now. so that's just an ongoing saga. again it's a combination of overly aggressive prosecution, inept defense, and judges that are either looking the other way or just staying out of it entirely. >> and just to be clear on that, castille was the chief district attorney. he was the district attorney. he approved seeking the death penalty. he had to give the go ahead for that. >> that's exactly right. >> later he was the chief justice on the pennsylvania supreme court, and he's still deciding that case even though he had made a critical decision in it. >> to add to this, that we have elections in pennsylvania for the supreme court and all judges, and he ran for the supreme court advertising that he had obtained 45 death sentences as the head prosecutor in philadelphia. he basically ran with that as a platform on his ticket. so

so terry williams gets a reprieve. the third degree case gets dismissed.hat's a whole story in itself because of prosecutorial misconduct, basically. and he's now fighting the second case for which he's serving a life sentence right now. so that's just an ongoing saga. again it's a combination of overly aggressive prosecution, inept defense, and judges that are either looking the other way or just staying out of it entirely. >> and just to be clear on that, castille was the chief district attorney. he was the district attorney. he approved seeking the death penalty. he had to give the go ahead for that. >> that's exactly right. >> later he was the chief justice on the pennsylvania supreme court, and he's still deciding that case even though he had made a critical decision in it. >> to add to this, that we have elections in pennsylvania for the supreme court and all judges, and he ran for the supreme court advertising that he had obtained 45 death sentences as the head prosecutor in philadelphia. he basically ran with that as a platform on his ticket. so th

privilege to welcome courageous, tenacious investigative journalist terry mitchell to our campus tonight and special thanks to dr. sherry williams who will interview him on stage here after his presentation of about 20 minutes. jerry mitchell has investigated some of the most heinous civil rights crimes in u.s. history. he was an investigative reporter at "the clarion-ledger" newspaper for 30 years. his stories have also exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations, reforms of state agencies, and the firings of boards and officials. his stories have also helped lead to the release of two people from mississippi's death row. a winner of a $500,000 macarthur genius grant and more than 30 other national awards including being named a pulitzer prize finalist, he is finishing his memoir about his pursuit of civil rights cold cases. his book is entitled "race against time" for simon & schuster. he is co-founder and the director of the mississippi center for investigative reporting. sherry williams is assistant professor here at the american university school of communications. dr. williams has a master's degree and a ph

going to go about terry parts everything named after the man, we would have to rename our capital city which is something that comes out of alumnus's name so what can we do about william byrd the second and if you think about him and you start to learn more about him, you have to question whether his name should grace that of a park in which people gather to enjoy themselves. as i mentioned he was very wealthy and also very erudite , had a fabulous library. wrote a number of folks including his secret diaries which he wrote in code which have yet to be cracked by historians and in his secret diaries he records his serial philandering. he was married twice but he continued to have multiple sexual affairs, many of which were rates of enslaved women all of which he details in his diaries. he also had some terrible habits of interaction with enslaved people who claimed as property. one enslaved demand for example had a habit of wetting the bed at night and as punishment once william byrd made him drink his own urine after he wet the bed. sort of representing the worst of virginia colonial aristocracy and yet his name is what this park in richmond virginia is named. this p