1983 Court Draft Disputed Atlanta Murder Conviction

Wayne B. Williams, known as the Atlanta child killer, did not receive a fair trial and his murder conviction should have been reversed, according to the original draft by the justice who wrote the 1983 Georgia Supreme Court ruling upholding Williams’ conviction.

“We find it necessary to reverse,” Justice Richard Bell wrote in the unpublished draft, criticizing the trial judge for allowing prosecutors to link Williams to five murders in addition to the two with which he was charged. The draft raised no objections to Williams’ having been linked at the trial to another five murders.

When the full Georgia Supreme Court met privately to consider Bell’s original opinion, it was voted down, according to court sources. Bell’s draft was rewritten, key portions excised and a majority opinion issued under Bell’s name Dec. 5, 1983.

Williams was tried on charges of killing two adults. But the prosecution attempted to link him at the trial to 10 in a string of 29 Atlanta-area murders, most of them children. The trial culminated a period in which the child murders focused international attention and pressure on Atlanta to find the killer.

Georgia law allows the introduction of other crimes into a trial if they show a pattern, such as the killer’s method of operation. Bell’s original draft said those standards were not met in five of the murders cited by the prosecution.

Bell, who spent 20 years as a prosecutor, was randomly assigned the Williams opinion. He took nearly six months to write it, according to court sources.

His colleagues rejected the opinion, first by a 5-2 vote. “He defended his opinion until he was overwhelmed,” another justice said of Bell. Bell finally switched his vote, making it 6 to 1 to uphold the conviction.

None of the seven Georgia Supreme Court justices would comment for the record on their handling of the case. Several noted that it is not rare for a justice to change his mind.

In a telephone interview, Bell, 63, declined to talk about specifics and would only say: “When there’s a majority, it’s not a writer’s opinion, it’s the court’s opinion.”

Williams’ current attorney, Lynn Whatley, said in an interview that although Williams’ conviction was for killing Nathaniel Cater, 27, and Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, the introduction of the 10 additional crimes--including nine child murders--meant “Williams ultimately went on trial as ‘The Child Murderer of Atlanta.’ It said to the jury: ‘He must be guilty.’ ”

Williams is serving two life sentences. His lawyer said Williams will appeal in the federal courts.

After Bell switched his vote, Justice George Smith was the lone dissenter.

According to one of his colleagues, Smith at one point told the other justices: “The only thing similar about these cases is they’re all dead.”