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(SALEM, Ore.) - An African American university student serving time behind bars for Manslaughter may have another shot at justice. Arguments were heard today in an Oregon Court of Appeals in the case of Darrell Sky Walker. His mother Alesia Williams, says she her support for her son has never faded.
Darrell Sky Walker family photo"It's never going to go away and guess what? Alicea Williams is never going away until Darrell Walker walks out of here a free man. I know that he is innocent, and I just want him to have a fair trial and you will see that he is an innocent man."
Darrell Walker was with two Caucasian friends in Eugene in June of 2005 when a racial slur was uttered and a fight broke out in an alley.
Walker says the person he fought walked away from the fight, and that his friend J.D. Beall threw the punch that knocked out a student named Phillip Gillins.
In the days following the fight, Beall is alleged to have bragged about his knockout punch, but then his story changed after Gillins died from injuries suffered in the fight.
The other friend, Ryan Joyce, could not be located for the trial, and as a result was never heard as a witness.
Attorney Ted VoskTed Vosk, Walker's attorney, said, "The jury in this case, specifically, before they came back with their verdict, asked, 'where is Ryan Joyce?' Well we know that Ryan Joyce purposely made himself unavailable because he didn't want to testify that his best friend killed Phillip Gillins"
The state of Oregon says Joyce invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not have to testify, shortly after the death of Gillins. In fact that seems to be of of the very points that the case centers around; as Vosk explains.
"One of the things that makes this tricky is that we have two Constitutional rights battling against each other. One is a right for a defendant, a citizen charged with a crime, to call witnesses in his defense, especially eyewitnesses, the other right is the Fifth Amendment to say, 'I'm not going to testify because I'll incriminate myself.' Nothing Ryan Joyce can say will incriminate him in any way, the state has admitted that."
A number of relatives of Walker's were on hand in Salem today for the arguments. One of them is his cousin, Tamara Dobson of Chicago, Illinois.
Tamara Dobson is Darrell Sky Walker's cousin"Of course we all, his family in Chicago as well as his family in California, wish that he would have stayed in California. Obviously being at the wrong place at the wrong time with a group of friends, caused him to be where he is. Let me retract that; Not friends, because friends do not let friends take the rap for something they didn't do."
I asked Vosk if he thought race was a direct connection to Walker's conviction. While the event clearly began with a racial slur, he says he does not believe race was a direct issue in the conviction.
"I do not think race, other than that aspect of it, played much of a role at trial because that jury sent out a note,'Joyce, where is Ryan Joyce?' that jury wanted the other witness. If this was based on race that jury never would have asked the question, they would have come back with a verdict (snaps fingers) just like that."
He says he believes that the jury was trying to weigh all the facts, the only problem is that they didn't get all the facts, without the testimony of Ryan Joyce. "I don't think you could say that his testimony wouldn't have made a difference."
Vosk went to far as to say that the testimony would have made all the difference, "coming from an eyewitness who is best friends with the boy who killed Phillip Gillins." Vosk added, "He would have testified that his best friend killed Phillip Gillins, and it was not Darrell Walker."
The case was seen by three Oregon Supreme Court judges in Salem: the Honorable Robert Wollheim, Rex Armstrong and Timothy J. Sercombe. Vosk says they now await a decision on whether the appeal will go forward, that could take from a few days to several months.
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Oregon Manslaughter Conviction Revisited by Appeals Court (VIDEO)Salem-News.com