For more than two weeks Tracen Franklin has sat silently as his lawyers and prosecutors question people who will be asked to decide whether he is a cold-blooded murderer who should die for killing Bobby Tillman.
Franklin’s lawyers hope to convince jurors that at the time of Tillman’s shocking death nearly two years ago, Franklin was an 18-year-old college freshman caught up in an angry, deadly mob.
Will a jury hand down the ultimate punishment, or see Franklin, now 20, as a young man capable of redemption?
Of the four charged with killing Tillman, he is the only one facing the prospect of a death sentence.
A former Douglas High School football standout, Franklin was a freshman at Alabama State University when the crime occurred. Its brutality and seeming randomness drew national news coverage.
Emanuel Boykins, who threw the first punch, pleaded guilty in April – to avoid a death-penalty trial – and was sentenced to prison for life but with a possibility of parole in 30 years. The other two have not had trials, but Douglas County District Attorney David McDade is not asking for death in their cases.
Opening statements in Franklin’s case could come as soon as this afternoon.
With the case in motion, neither the prosecutors, defense attorneys or Tillman’s mother would comment.
McDade has declined several times to say why he is seeking death for only one of the men, who were 18 and 19 at the time.
A difficulty for jurors will be deciding if Franklin was so much more responsible for Tillman’s death than his three friends that he deserves more severe punishment.
Tillman was punched and kicked in, by all accounts, a fatal frenzy.
How, asked Gary Parker, can authorities show which of the four allegedly delivered the killing blow? Parker, who has practiced death-penalty defense for more than three decades, said, “If a bunch of kinds jump in and start beating down a kid and kill a kid and you can’t say which person was responsible for that, how can you” decide who deserves the death penalty?
"A decision to seek the death penalty is not something that happens quickly," said Floyd County District Attorney Leigh Patterson, president of the Georgia District Attorneys Association. "It's not something that should happen quickly," Patterson said, speaking of capital cases in general.
She said that usually, after the evidence is evaluated, the victim’s family is consulted. “But you make it clear to them” that the final decision on seeking the death penalty belongs to the district attorney, Patterson said.
In this case Tillman’s mother, Monique Rivarde, was very involved.
Assembling a pool of 52 people “qualified” to sit on a death-case jury, which means they are willing to consider all punishment options if they convict Franklin, took more than two weeks of intense questioning.
On Nov. 6, 2010, Tillman, an 18-year-old student at Perimeter College, arrived at a house in Douglasville where he had been invited to a small party. But by the time he got there, the parents in that home were shutting the party down because it had gotten too big and out of control once word of the gathering spread across the county.
Franklin, Boykins, Quantez Devonta Mallory and Horace Damon Coleman were among many who were not invited but came to the party anyway. As everyone was leaving, there was an altercation on the lawn. Witnesses said that after watching teenage girls fight for a few minutes, the four jumped Tillman, who was standing nearby.
Though the attack was reported nationwide, many who reported for jury service said they knew little, if anything, about it.
And a number of people said they could not vote for a death sentence. Life with the possibility of parole in 30 years also was not a good option for some. Many said they could vote for life without parole, however.
It has taken almost two years for the case to come to trial. If Franklin is convicted and condemned, an execution wouldn’t occur for years, assuming his conviction and sentence withstand appeals. The average time for a death case in Georgia to conclude with an execution is about 12 years.
Sometimes it’s much longer. Carlton Gary, for example, is on Death Row for murdering three elderly Columbus women in 1977. A Muscogee County judge is considering whether the “stocking strangler” should get a new trial because of new evidence.
“What’s not explained is how grueling and gruesome and trying this process is,” said Parker, who represented Gary at trial. “No one explains to families how this … drags on for years and years and years and years.”
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who has won six capital cases and has three death cases pending, said he does tell victim’s families everything they should expect. “I explain the trial process, the pretrial process and the appellate process,” Porter said. ” I’ve never had one [a victim’s family] … that gave out on me.”
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