Ninety days.
That's all the time four teenagers have to decide if they will plead guilty to the Nov. 6 beating death of Bobby Tillman. After that, Douglas County District Attorney David McDade said he will seek the death penalty.
"The 90-day deadline is non-negotiable," McDade told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday. "I don't intend to let this thing drag. I intend to bring this to a closure ... I have told them [the defense attorneys] 90 days is a reasonable amount of time for them to evaluate the case."
The date for the decision is no later than June 8.
At a hearing Wednesday on the status of the case, McDade turned over the "complete discovery [and] the investigative files," meaning the defense attorneys now know what kind of case McDade has.
Bobby Tillman, 18, was punched and stomped to death at a party to celebrate two girls getting good grades.
He didn't know his attackers. Tillman was chosen at random; he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, police said.
McDade said Tillman's mother, Monique Rivarde, and the rest of the family approve of his decision.
"They are completely on board," McDade said. "I'm trying to see to it that this family gets justice but I also want to make it clear we are ready to go forward."
Quantez Devonta Mallory, Horace Damon Coleman, Emmanuel Benjamin Boykins and Tracen Lamar Franklin were accused of murdering Tillman, who had just come from a church program on teenage bullying. They have been in the Douglas County Jail since their arrests in November.
Mallory and Boykins were 18 at the time and Coleman and Franklin were 19.
If they decide to plead, the case could be over almost immediately and the judge would have the option of sentencing them to life without parole or life with the possibility of parole in 30 years.
If it is pursued as a death case, it could be more than a year before a jury hears it because of all the state law requires to be done before trial. There must be special circumstances to bring a capital charge but McDade has not said what those "aggravating" circumstances are.
Jack Martin, a veteran death penalty defense attorney, said McDade's public announcement of a plea offer in open court and to the media was unusual. "It's not usual for prosecutors to threaten a more severe sentence if somebody doesn't resolve the case but it's [threatening a death case] a pretty blunt instrument."
What's most unusual, Martin said, is the public pronouncement in open court about plea options, which he called "grandstanding.
"Most times plea agreements are [negotiated] behind closed doors," said Martin, who is not affiliated with this case. "Plea negotiations, like any negotiations, are better done not in front of the media."
The case received a great deal of attention in the weeks after Tillman was killed because of how he died.
Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller said a fight broke out between two girls outside the house on Independence Drive where the party took place.
A girl struck a male party-goer. But he refused to strike a female and vowed instead to take it out on next male who walked by.
That was Tillman.
At 5-foot-6 and 125 pounds, Tillman was much smaller than the four accused to beating and stomping him; Mallory played football. He was unable to fight back.
Witnesses said the attack took less than a minute.
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