Almost two decades after Timothy Tyrone Foster was sentenced to death, his new lawyers obtained the prosecution’s files through an Open Records Act request.
For example, with a light green marker, the prosecution team highlighted the names of African-Americans in the jury pool, noting that the color green “represents blacks.” In addition, the prosecution identified three potential jurors as “B#1,” “B#2” and “B#3,” with “B” being code for black.
In one of the color-coded lists prepared by the prosecution team, someone wrote “NO WAY” and “NO!!” next to the names of several African-Americans in the jury pool. In another document, the remaining black prospective jurors were ranked against each other in case “it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors.”
Another note prepared by the prosecution listed six jurors as being “definite NO’s.” The top five on the list were the remaining African-American jurors in the pool. The sixth person on the list was a white woman who had said, during questioning, that she didn’t know if she could impose a death sentence even if the evidence warranted it.
One file prepared by the prosecution focused on the Church of Christ and noted that church didn’t take a stand on the death penalty and said the issue was left for each member of the congregation. Yet on that same document, someone wrote, “NO. NO Black Church.”
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