Jury deliberations resume Wednesday on sentence for truck driver convicted in smuggling deaths

Wednesday, January 10th 2007, 6:23 am

By: News On 6

HOUSTON (AP) _ Family members of a truck driver convicted for his role in the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt said they could only pray as a jury deliberates whether to sentence him to death.

``My brother is very faithful. He's leaving everything up to God at this point,'' Coretta Williams said of Tyrone Williams. ``We're praying for him.''

Jurors were set to deliberate for a second day Wednesday about whether to sentence Williams to death or up to life in prison without parole. He was convicted last month on 58 counts of conspiracy, harboring and transporting immigrations in connection with the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants.

More than 70 people from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic were packed inside Williams' trailer in the failed 2003 smuggling attempt from South Texas to Houston. The 19 victims died from dehydration, overheating and suffocation after nearly four hours inside the oven-like container.

Defense attorney Craig Washington told jurors Williams, 35, never intended for the immigrants to die. Washington and Williams' family have said it's unfair the truck driver is the only one of the 14 people charged in the case who is facing the death penalty and that others were equally responsible.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez told jurors Williams deserves to die because he refused to free the immigrants when he knew they were dying.

The trial was the second for Williams, a Jamaican citizen who lived in Schenectady, N.Y. An appeals court overturned a verdict against him in 2005 when a jury convicted him on 38 transporting counts, but couldn't agree on his role in the smuggling attempt and were deadlocked on the 20 other counts.