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How The Persecution Of The Court Case For The Batson V. Kentucky Case

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In 1986, Timothy Tyrone Foster was charged with murdering Queen White, a 79-year-old white woman working as a school teacher. Foster, a poor African American male with intellectual disabilities, was eighteen years old at the time of the charges. In the same year of Foster’s crime, Batson v. Kentucky was decided and established precedent for his case. Batson v. Kentucky concluded that preemptory strikes in jury selection that relied on racial factors were unconstitutional under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. (Bright, 2015, p. 2). This case outlined a three-step process for addressing such claims. First, a prima facie showing must be identified in the prosecution’s use of peremptory strikes. Next, race-neutral explanations for the strikes …show more content…

Foster alleged that the prosecution violated constitutional provisions of due process through racial discrimination similar to the Batson v. Kentucky case (Bright, 2015, p. 2). The trial court concluded that this case presented a prima facie, or “at first look,” use of racial discrimination. Focus then shifted to the prosecution’s ability to justify the four strikes as prescribed in the three-step process. The prosecutor returned with forty reasons for the strikes and the trial court overruled the Batson objection. Subsequently, Foster was tried before an all-white jury, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death (Bright, 2015, p. 3). 
 Foster filed a motion after the trial for post-judgement discovery regarding the prosecution’s notes and records. This motion was denied. Foster then filed a motion for a new trial, restating his previous arguments, and was denied again. In 1988, Foster filed a direct appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court which resulted in an affirmation of the trial court’s ruling concerning the Batson allegations (Bright, 2015, p. 3-4). In 1989, Foster filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Butts County, Georgia to address his intellectual state which temporarily suspended the rest of the case. In 1999, a Floyd County jury concluded that Foster’s intellectual ability was not of a disabled degree and the case resumed in 2000 (Bright, 2015, p.

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