Smuggler's Life on the Line
In his opening statement, the attorney for truck driver Tyrone Williams conceded a central point. Yes, the lawyer declared, Williams was "clearly guilty" of hauling illegal immigrants in a sealed trailer — a tortuous, four-hour passage up the Rio Grande Valley that 19 of them did not survive. It was also true, added Craig Washington, that once his client discovered all those "poor people" piled in stacks, he hastily unhooked his trailer and high-tailed it for Houston, concocting an alibi on the fly.
As these concessions made clear, the United States vs. Tyrone Mapletoft Williams would not be a search to determine who was behind the wheel one steamy May night in 2003, or whether the trucker was in league with smugglers.
Rather, the trial would turn on intent, on what Williams knew, or should have known, was unfolding in the back of his 18-wheeler as he rolled up U.S. Highway 77 — windows down, Jamaican music on the CD player, a young woman at his side. PETER H. KING in the Los Angeles Times.