A man on death row who was forced to act as his own lawyer is seeking a new trial, claiming multiple violations of his constitutional rights.
Howard Willis was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murders of teenage newlyweds, 17-year-old Adam Chrismer and 16-year-old Samantha Leming Chrismer, both of Chickamauga, Georgia. The boy’s head and hands were found by fishermen in Boone Lake in northeastern Tennessee in October 2002. The bodies of both teens were found a few days later in a storage unit rented by Willis' mother in Johnson City.
In his bid for a new trial, Willis claims the original was unfair because he was forced to act as his own attorney and because he wasn’t afforded sufficient resources to defend himself, among other claims. “Although it is inconvenient to have to replace a lawyer, if there are legitimate complaints about the performance of that lawyer, a citizen should be entitled to raise those issues and have the right to counsel protected, especially when they are facing the death penalty," the petition reads.
When the Chrismers were murdered in 2002, Willis was a Georgia trucker who was out on bond after an arrest in New York, where he was accused of smuggling cocaine from Texas to Brooklyn. Willis' conflicts with his attorneys led to several withdrawing from the case. In 2008, the trial court judge ruled Willis had forfeited his right to an attorney. Willis appealed but lost. With the appeal over, he had only a few months to prepare his defense, according to the petition. That preparation was also seriously hindered by the fact that he was incarcerated.
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