State seeks death in re-trial
Timothy Tyrone Foster, who had his 1987 murder conviction overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, enters a not guilty plea to charges of murder and burglary during a preliminary hearing Thursday.
The state is seeking the death penalty in the retrial of a man whose 1987 murder conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016.
Preliminary hearings began Thursday in the trial of 50-year-old Timothy Tyrone Foster, who entered a not guilty plea to charges of murder and burglary. A date in mid-June has been set as the deadline for both sides to file motions in Floyd County Superior Court. Additional hearings could be held before that time.
Foster was sentenced to death for the murder of retired school teacher Queen Madge White during a 1986 burglary at her home at Highland Circle — he was 18 at the time.
The 79-year-old White was first found by her sister the morning after the incident. She had a broken jaw and a gash on top of her head, and had been molested before being strangled to death.
In May 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Foster’s conviction on the grounds of black jurors being excluded from his original trial. Thendistrict attorney Steve Lanier struck off all four
black jurors before the trial. By filing an open records request for the prosecutors’ trial notes, Foster’s lawyers had discovered the exclusion.
“The focus on race in the prosecution’s file plainly demonstrates a concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
The Georgia Supreme Court had backed a 1987 ruling in Floyd County Superior Court that found Lanier had raceneutral reasons for striking the jurors.
This exclusion offered Foster a path for an appeal, despite him confessing to the crime when
police found stolen items from White’s house at his own residence.
On Thursday, Judge Billy Sparks read over the unified appeal, hitting
each point on a checklist. The defense, led by Christian Lamar of the Georgia Public Defender Council, left its options open for challenges.
Sparks reminded lawyers that even with the re-arraignment of Foster, the case does not begin anew. With both sides still in the discovery stage, Sparks said, “I do realize this is a 30-yearold case and no one has been on this case,” as they answered his questions.
Foster is currently being held without bond in Floyd County Jail, which he was moved to from the state’s death row in Jackson in March 2017.