CRIME Judge: Charges should have been dismissed in 1993 slaying

The district attorney's office is vowing to appeal the ruling.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Charges against a man serving a life sentence for his role in an execution-style slaying more than a decade ago should have been dismissed because he was denied a speedy trial, a judge has ruled.
The victim in the 1993 murder was Omar Massey-Wideman, nephew of John Edgar Wideman, who has written vivid accounts of race, injustice and the inability to escape violence in black America. Many of his stories are drawn from the streets not far from where his nephew was killed.
The jailed man
Stanford Williams, 36, of Pittsburgh, has been jailed since his 1999 conviction, but defense attorney John Elash said his client is innocent and should be released immediately.
"He's being held even though a judge ruled he's not guilty of anything," he said. "The onus is on the district attorney to prove otherwise."
The Allegheny County District Attorney's office, however, is vowing to appeal the ruling by Judge David Cashman, who said last week that prosecutors waited too long to bring Williams to trial the first time in 1996.
Elash said the first trial resulted in a hung jury leaning 8-4 in favor of acquittal and the second ended in a mistrial. The third trial, in which Williams was represented by a different attorney, resulted in a conviction.
Wideman's book
In his 1985 memoir "Brothers and Keepers," Wideman, a college professor, wrote about his efforts to reconnect with his brother, Robby, now serving a life sentence in prison for murder.
It was Robby's son who was killed by two masked men on Nov. 8, 1993. Williams was accused of being the getaway driver.
John Edgar Wideman could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Defense attorneys have argued that Williams picked the men up after the slaying and did not participate in the crime. Officers heading toward Massey-Wideman's house stopped the car, which was driving away at a high rate of speed.
Other man convicted
One of the other men in the car that night, after one mistrial, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence. The second man was acquitted after two mistrials and died 10 months later in a motorcycle accident.
Prosecutors in Allegheny County say they were unable to bring Williams to trial because he was in a federal prison in Ohio on drug charges.
In a ruling released last week, Allegheny County Judge David Cashman disagreed.
"From a review of the record it is clear that the due diligence was not exercised," he wrote.