On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled the Supreme Court of Georgia and issued a stay of execution for an inmate who has been on death row since the 1990s. Keith Tharpe was sentenced to death for the murder of his sister-in-law. He appealed the execution on the basis that a juror voted for the death penalty because he (the juror) was racist. The stay is meant to serve as temporary relief until the Court decides if they will hear his appeal.
Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, saying they would not have granted the stay.In post-conviction appeals, Tharpe did not deny killing [Jacquelin Freeman]. He sought a stay of execution based in part on racist comments from a juror who has since died.In an interview seven years after Tharpe's sentencing, juror Barney Gattie used the n-word in reference to Tharpe and other black people and wondered "if black people even have souls." Tharpe's lawyers argued that a biased juror violated Tharpe's constitutional rights to a fair trial. Furthermore, his attorneys argued Tharpe is ineligible for execution because he is intellectually disabled.
Tharpe was accused of kidnapping and shooting his sister-in-law to death as well as sexually assaulting his wife. He was initially tried and convicted in 1991. However, it wasn’t until 1998 when lawyers were looking into whether or not his detainment was lawful that they found that the juror in question may have been biased during the trial.
from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2hCBHe7
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