UPDATE: The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Sallie’s request for clemen­cy. PREVIOUSLY: Georgia plans to exe­cute William Sallie (pic­tured) on December 6 in a case his attor­neys argue is taint­ed by egre­gious juror mis­con­duct that no court has con­sid­ered because Sallie missed a fil­ing dead­line dur­ing a peri­od in which he was unrep­re­sent­ed and Georgia pro­vid­ed him no right to a lawyer. It is a case that Andrew Cohen, a Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and long-time legal ana­lyst, says ​“should shock the con­science of every per­son who believes [in] due process of law.” Sallie was con­vict­ed of killing his father-in-law and wound­ing his moth­er-in-law dur­ing a 1990 cus­tody fight with his estranged wife. Because the case involved domes­tic vio­lence, divorce, and a cus­tody bat­tle, poten­tial jurors were ques­tioned about their expe­ri­ences with those issues in an effort to elim­i­nate pos­si­ble bias. One juror lied about her back­ground, which includ­ed four con­tentious divorces, child cus­tody and sup­port fights, and fam­i­ly vio­lence. Although the tri­al judge had presided over three of the juror’s four divorce pro­ceed­ings — includ­ing one said to have involved dra­mat­ic scenes in the court­room — he failed to remove her from the jury. During ques­tion­ing, the same juror stat­ed that she would fol­low Biblical law over Georgia law, which Cohen says also should have dis­qual­i­fied her from serv­ing in the case. However, over the objec­tions of Sallie’s attor­ney, the judge per­mit­ted her to serve and the Georgia courts reject­ed this chal­lenge to the juror on appeal. During the course of the tri­al, the juror then car­ried on an extra­mar­i­tal affair with a male juror, and law enforce­ment per­son­nel were dis­patched to her house after the tri­al to tell the man his wife had been look­ing for him. The judge sub­se­quent­ly informed Sallie’s lawyers of that affair, but in the 15 months before fil­ing a motion for a new tri­al, they did noth­ing to inves­ti­gate the juror and did not raise her mar­i­tal his­to­ry or in-tri­al mis­con­duct as an issue. The juror lat­er said in an affi­davit that she had pres­sured six oth­er jurors into vot­ing for a death sen­tence for Sallie. No appeals court has heard evi­dence of the juror mis­con­duct because Sallie missed a fil­ing dead­line by eight days dur­ing a peri­od when he had no lawyers rep­re­sent­ing him. Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman S. Fletcher decried Georgia’s fail­ure to pro­vide death row inmates with attor­neys through­out the appeals process, say­ing that “[f]undamental fair­ness, due process and the pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment require the courts to pro­vide an attor­ney through­out the entire legal process to review a death sen­tence. Virtually every cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment state has this safe­guard. Georgia is an out­lier.” In his clemen­cy peti­tion, Sallie’s attor­neys argue, ​“The deter­mi­na­tion of a death sen­tence must occur only with the most pris­tine and care­ful pro­ceed­ings uncor­rupt­ed by bias and dis­hon­esty. That sim­ply did not happen here.”

(A. Cohen, ​“The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” Brennan Center for Justice, December 2, 2016; R. Cook, ​“Death row inmate’s lawyers to Parole Board: Juror was biased,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 3, 2016; N. Fletcher, ​“Georgia’s Dangerous Rush to Execution,” The New York Times, December 5, 2016.) See Arbitrariness and Representation.

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