Appeals Court to Decide if Octavius Williams Will Get a New Trial in Attempted Murder Case His Brother Has Since Confessed To

Renewed hope for Octavius Williams, who was convicted of attempted murder in 2011, was found on Case Western's campus this week, where the 27-year-old had his case for a new trial argued in front of the three-judge Eighth District Appellate Court.

The incident of question revolves around one night nearly 13 years ago. On November 1, 2010, dozens of people gathered at Ardy Williams' home in Union-Miles for a Halloween party. Octavius, who was 17 and went by Tay-Tay at the time, was present, along with his brother Ricky. A fight broke out. Shots were fired between rivaling parties, and a little after midnight, Dennis Cole was shot.

After a five-day trial, a  jury convicted Octavius of attempted murder. Judge Deena Calabrese would sentence him to 15 years in prison, a sentence that leaned heavily on the following premise: that police, after hearing Cole's initial description of his shooter, thought Octavius best fit the description. He would spend the next 3,091 days incarcerated.

Williams is currently out of prison, but he is not innocent. In late 2019 he was granted judicial release in a compromise reached between the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office and his defense team after new evidence was brought before the office's Conviction Integrity Unit. That evidence — three separate confessions from his brother Ricky, initially offered while in jail on an unrelated murder charge, that he was in fact the shooter — was enough for the CIU's board and an external independent review panel to decide Octavius was actually innocent of the crime in question.

But the CIU's recommendation is just that — a recommendation. The head prosecutor, in this case Michael O'Malley, has discretion on what to do with the information.

O'Malley didn't believe Octavius was actually innocent, but felt there were enough questions that he should no longer be in jail.

So Octavius was released, put on probation, and set free, though in the eyes of the law, still a convicted felon.

"You've got to use your human intuition and life experience to come up with the best decisions," O'Malley told Scene in 2020. "What is justice in this case? I think in this particular case, we did the best we could. I think we did what was right."



On Wednesday afternoon, the judges entertained oral arguments in the appeal on whether or not the new evidence — his brother's repeated confessions — merit a new trial for Octavius, one that could result in a not-guilty verdict and total exoneration. Not only would it remove the felon tag from his record, but it would open the possibility of Octavius seeking compensation from the state for being wrongfully convicted.

"What we know is that confession evidence is a unique kind of evidence," Joanna Sanchez, director of the Wrongful Conviction Project at the Ohio Public Defender's Office, told the judges. She acknowledged the difficulty in relying solely on witness testimony: "We know more about what happened at the O.K. Corral than about what happened that night."

But what we do know now could have led a jury to make a different decision.

Arguments zeroed in on both Ricky's confession and the true intentions behind his admittance of apparent guilt. After all, as both parties brought up, Ricky was not present at the original trial in 2011, and did not give proper testimony.

At the core here is whether Ricky's confessions represent "new" evidence. As our 2020 feature on the case noted: "New evidence must not merely contradict evidence that has come before. A new confession that takes a jab at what someone said 10 years ago isn't going to fly. But new evidence that aligns with the story painted by the defense — new evidence that would tilt how a jury sees the course of events playing out — that's where attorneys like Sanchez can find an opportunity to return to court and reignite the state's litigation of someone like Williams."

Prosecutors presented Ricky's initial confession as one complicated by his own 22-year sentence on a murder charge. Moreover, the fact that Cole was drunk at the time (he had a 0.27 BAC the night of the shooting) and was close to dying were additional factors both parties found value in revisiting.

"The core argument here is: Does every confession mean a new trial?" a Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor said. "The question for this court was whether or not the trial court decision was reasonably based on the facts of this case."

Judge Gallagher scrutinized the notion.

"It all goes back to what Ricky knew at the time, what he says happened at the time, and what the main people say happened at the time," she told prosecutor. "Is it new, or is it just available to us now?"

"That is the quintessential part of new evidence," Miranda said.

The three-judge panel is expected to draft an opinion in the next few days which will determine whether or not Octavius' case returns to court for a fresh start.

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