Opposing attorneys offered two different portraits of convicted murderer Tracen Franklin Tuesday in the penalty phase of the capital case against him.
Prosecutors talked of Franklin torturing, punching and stomping Bobby Tillman. The other picture from the defense was of Franklin as an impulsive 18-year-old “kid” making a tragic decision.
A Douglas County jury will choose which picture is more convincing and how Franklin should be punished for killing Tillman almost two years ago as a party at a Douglasville house was ending. The jurors’ choices are the death penalty, life without parole, or life with the possibility of parole once Franklin has spent at least 30 years in prison.
The jury heard closing arguments in the penalty phase Tuesday afternoon. At 4:20 p.m. Judge William McClain sent them back to the jury room to deliberate. They broke for the evening 40 minutes later and were told to be back Wednesday morning.
Last week that same jury convicted Franklin, now 20, of murdering Tillman on Nov. 6, 2010. Three others also were charged in Tillman’s slaying. Emanuel Boykins pleaded guilty last spring to avoid the death penalty. Quantez Devonta Mallory and Horace Damon Coleman have not yet gone to trial; the district attorney is not seeking the death penalty against them.
There is something “fundamentally wrong” with only one of those accused in the case facing a death sentence, defense attorney Jerry Word said. Boykins “cut a deal” for a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and only admitted he had a role in the attack when he entered his plea, Word said.
“Life with parole is fair for Manny Boykins?” Word said. “So why isn’t it fair for Tracen Franklin? Let him live. Let him grow. Let him learn from his mistakes.”
Prosecutors and defense attorneys spent about two hours Tuesday summing up their cases.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Brian Fortner focused on the randomness and viciousness of the attack, which drew national media coverage at the time.
A party to celebrate two high school girls’ good grades spun out of control, so the parents told everyone to leave. Two girls got into a fight on the lawn, and that led to more fights.
Boykins was hit by one of the girls, and that is when he announced he would “pop” a guy in retaliation because he didn’t hit girls, according to court testimony.
Tillman was sitting on the trunk of a car nearby, so Boykins ran up and punched him, knocking the 18-year-old Georgia Perimeter College student to the pavement. According to court testimony, his three friends then joined him in stomping, kicking and punching Tillman, who died of a lacerated heart.
“Now it’s time for … justice, a sentence of death for the malice murder of Bobby Tillman,” Fortner told the jury. “No human being should be subjected to what Bobby Tillman was. Bobby was tortured.”
Fortner asked the jury to “send a message. If you beat and stomp someone in Douglas County, you get the death penalty.”
Word responded: “One guy? That’s not sending a message.”
Franklin’s life was on a successful course even though he was born “in jail” to a teenager, Word said, and became “the man of the house” at a very young age, taking care of his sisters while his mother worked. Franklin took summer classes at Alabama State University in 2010, starting six days after he graduated high school, so he could get his grades high enough to play football. He wanted to be a sportscaster, the attorney said.
“The decision he made was a horrible, horrible, tragic one,” Word said. “This is not something someone should die in prison for, either by lethal injection or carried out in a pine box.”
Word asked for life with the possibility of parole.
That’s not enough, Fortner said.
“Where was the mercy for Bobby Tillman? Did he get mercy out there that night?” Fortner said. “What he got wasn’t mercy. It was blow after blow after blow and stomp after stomp after stomp until his life was gone. Sentence Tracen Franklin to death.”
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