Entries tagged with “Warren King”
Mar 28, 2025
“He Looks a Little Like the Defendant”: A Closer Look at the History of Racial Bias in Jury Selection
As closing arguments of his trial began in Johnston County, North Carolina, Hasson Bacote watched as Assistant District Attorney Gregory Butler urged the jury to sentence him to death. Mr. Bacote, a Black man, had been convicted of fatally shooting 18-year-old Anthony Surles during a robbery when Mr. Bacote was just 21 years old. Mr. Bacote admitted he had fired a single shot out of a trailer, but said he did not know that he hit anyone. “Hasson Bacote is a thug: cold-blooded and without…
Issues
Jul 19, 2024
New Filings Allege Georgia Prosecutor Withheld Critical Evidence of Plea Deal with Co-Defendant from Warren King
Attorneys for Warren King (pictured), who was convicted and sentenced to death in Georgia in 1998 for the murder of a convenience store clerk, have uncovered evidence that shows the prosecutor, John B. Johnson, withheld critical evidence from Mr. King’s defense team at the time of trial. A new court filing indicates that ADA Johnson failed to disclose a plea deal reached with Mr. King’s co-defendant, Walter Smith, the only eyewitness to the crime. Both Mr. King and Mr. Smith were charged with…
Issues
Mar 28, 2024
OP-ED: Black Woman Denied Opportunity to Serve as a Juror in Georgia Capital Trial Cites Concerns About Racial Bias
In a March 26, 2024, op-ed published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Patricia McTier, a Georgia nurse, recounts her experience being removed from a jury pool in 1998 for what she calls a “questionable reason” related to her race. Born and raised in Appling County, Georgia, Ms. McTier grew up in the Jim Crow era and writes that she “enter[ed] adulthood during a time of great social change,” where she grew to “cherish our American system of justice and the Constitution that endows all of us…
Issues
Feb 20, 2024
Op-Ed: Law Professor Stephen Bright Encourages SCOTUS to Review “Egregious Racial Discrimination” in Georgia Death Row Prisoner’s Case
In a February 14, 2024 op-ed published in the Washington Post, the longtime defense lawyer, former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and law professor Stephen Bright highlights the continued illegal exclusion of Black jurors in violation of Batson v. Kennedy (1986). The op-ed titled, “Struck from a jury for being Black? It still happens all too often,” uses the case of Georgia death-sentenced prisoner Warren King, whose petition the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to review on…
Issues
Jan 23, 2024
United States Supreme Court Asked to Consider Another Case of Racially Biased Prosecutorial Jury Strikes
On December 18, 2023, attorneys for Warren King, an intellectually disabled black man sentenced to death in Georgia in 1998, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, asking the Court to review the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling denying Mr. King relief. The petition states that “abundant evidence demonstrates that the prosecutor discriminated against Black and female jurors in selecting [Mr.] King’s jury,” which violates the Equal Protection Clause…