United States v. Williams, No. 12-3029 (D.C. Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of second-degree murder and witness tampering for his role in the hazing and in covering up information about Army Sergeant Juwan Johnson’s death. Defendant was the leader of a group called "Brothers of the Struggle" (BOS), which was made up of members of the U.S. Army and Air Force at Ramstein but was not affiliated with the military. The BOS regularly initiated new members by beating them up in a ritual known as a “jump-in.” During a typical jump-in, approximately six members of the BOS hit the initiate for about six minutes. An autopsy report revealed that blunt force injuries inflicted during the initiation caused Johnson's death. The court rejected defendant's challenges to the sufficiency of the government’s evidence at trial. The court concluded, however, that the government misstated the law in its closing argument. Because the misstatement implicated a central issue - the state of mind with which defendant acted - and was not sufficiently cured, the court reversed defendant's murder conviction. Finally, the court rejected defendant's remaining claims of evidentiary errors. Therefore, the court affirmed the witness-tampering conviction.
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