Jessie Con-ui

Jessie Con-ui (born January 17, 1977) is an American criminal who, while serving time in prison at United States Penitentiary, Canaan for multiple crimes including first-degree murder, killed a corrections officer. Con-ui had a lengthy criminal past that included dozens of charges for drug use, distribution, trafficking, aggravated assault, robbery, attempted murder and murder.

Criminal past
Jessie Con-ui was raised in a slum in Manila, Philippines, before his mother married a U.S. serviceman and his family moved to Rome, New York, in the 1980s. In 2013, Con-ui was at Canaan serving an 11-year prison sentence stemming from a 2003 guilty plea for his role in a drug ring run by the New Mexican Mafia prison gang. He was also serving a concurrent life sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to first-degree murder in Arizona.

In that case, which occurred in 2002, Con-ui baited friend and fellow gang member Carlos Garcia into meeting him at a Phoenix laundromat. There, two men ambushed and shot Garcia, who managed to slip away before one of the men fired four rounds into his head.

Court documents claim Con-ui also agreed to or participated in several separate, uncharged incidents while incarcerated between 1999 and 2010, including stabbing another inmate with a homemade knife and assaulting another inmate with a food tray.

Murder of Eric Williams
Con-ui began his incarceration at United States Penitentiary, Canaan in 2009. On February 25, 2013, Con-ui kicked corrections officer Eric Williams down a flight of stairs. Con-ui then attacked Williams for 11 minutes using two shanks, while other prisoners watched. Con-ui stabbed Williams 203 times, kicked him 11 times, and stomped his face, head, and neck six times. Video footage showed that more than 100 other inmates in the unit did nothing to intervene as the attack played out.

Finally, a fellow corrections officer who entered looking for Williams found Con-ui standing over Williams' body at the bottom of the stairs. First aid was administered by other corrections staff, but was unsuccessful. Williams' body was transported to an area hospital and Con-ui was immediately taken into custody. When Con-ui was asked by another officer why he killed Williams, he responded, "That fool disrespected me."

Murder trial
After Williams' murder, Con-ui was jailed at ADX Florence, a super-maximum federal prison in Fremont County, Colorado, nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”.

Con-ui's trial began on June 5, 2017 with opening statements held at the Federal Courthouse in Scranton, Pennsylvania. On the first day, an 11-minute video showing the graphic attack was played in front of the courtroom. Con-ui was seen covering his eyes with his hands, and the Williams family left prior to the video, stating "We didn't want to see our son, husband and friend like that."

Defense attorneys fully admitted to jurors that "Jessie is guilty of murder beyond all doubt" and focused on trying to keep him from being sentenced to death. On June 7, 2017, the jury found Con-ui guilty of first-degree murder. On July 10, the jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility for parole, despite 11 out of 12 jurors voting in favor of the death penalty, as current law requires a jury to unanimously impose the death penalty.

Legislation
In May 2023, U.S. Representatives Matt Cartwright and Glenn Thompson, both of Pennsylvania, introduced Eric’s Law, a bill that would permit prosecutors to impanel a second jury for sentencing if the first jury in a federal death penalty case fails to reach a unanimous decision on a sentence, as it did in Con-ui's trial for Williams' murder. This is the fourth attempt to pass the bill, which was previously introduced by former Senator Pat Toomey in 2018 and 2021, and Senator Ted Cruz in February 2023.