Williams, Jemadari Chinua

Williams was charged with six alternative methods of committing aggravated promotion of prostitution. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the court of appeals’ initial decision and remanded the case.

On remand, Williams’s appointed counsel—raising the issue for the first time—argued that the trial court erred by denying Williams’s motion to quash the indictment. Counsel asserted that the indictment employed undefined terms of indeterminate or variable meaning, specifically challenging the allegations that Williams “owned, invested in, financed, controlled, supervised, or managed” the prostitution enterprise.  He argued that greater specificity was required to provide adequate notice. The court of appeals agreed. It further concluded that Williams lacked actual notice because the State failed to prove compliance with its discovery obligations.

The State contends that Williams’s remand claim is procedurally defaulted because he did not raise it in the court of appeals on original submission. The State faults the lower court for failing to address this procedural bar, arguing that the claim cannot be treated as unassigned error and that the court erred by disregarding the State’s briefing on the issue. The State further maintains that the court exceeded the scope of the Court of Criminal Appeals’ remand order, which directed it to address only the “remaining points of error.”

The State further argues that Williams never complained about the absence of actual notice and that the discovery-based rationale adopted by the lower court is likewise defaulted. Any complaint regarding undocumented discovery, the State contends, was forfeited by Williams’s failure to raise the issue in the trial court, where he could have made a record.