Foster V. Chatman Case Summary

Procedural History

In a Georgia Court, Timothy Foster was convicted of capital murder and penalized to death. During his trial, the State Court use peremptory challenges to strike all four black prospective jurors qualified to serve on the Jury. However, Foster argued that the use of these strikes was racially motivated, in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S.79. That led his claim to be rejected by the trial court, and the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. The state courts rejected relief, and the Foster’s Batson claim had been adjudicated on direct appeal. Finally, his Batson claim had been failed by the court because it failed to show “any change in the facts sufficient to overcome”.

Essential Facts of the Case

The Foster v. Chatman case is about Timothy Foster, who is a deprived, mentally disabled, black adolescent accused of killing a white female. The major concern is his trial which included only white juries after the exclusion of the potential black jurors from jury service in his trial. The prosecution afterward ruled that Foster should be given a death sentence to prevent other individuals from similar projects. During the time, almost all the people in the projects were of the black race, including Timothy’s family. The jury ruled a death sentence to Foster.

The details disclosed that the prosecution highlighted the names of the potential black judges and tinted every black potential juror’s name in a different color. There were four different duplicates of the record of all of the individuals summoned for the task in the case. Evert record had a key, which indicated that the highlighted names represented the blacks. Besides, there were no any blotches made for the white jurors on the lists. There were also many marks made on the black people’s names on the juror questionnaires, and there was no any other race that was