Georgia Case Roundup

Two cases in Georgia highlight charging decisions and disparities.

Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "Death-penalty trial near in teen’s beating death."  It's by Rhonda Cook.

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.

And:

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?

In another Georgia case, the Florida Times-Union reports, "Accused Brunswick killer to go free after pleading to lesser charge."  It's by Terry Dickson.

John David Clay, who once faced a death penalty trial on a murder charge, pleaded guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter in the brutal stabbing death of a Brunswick woman and could be released immediately.

In sentencing Clay, Superior Court Judge Anthony L. Harrison gave him credit for the nearly five years and six months he has been behind bars and ordered him to serve the balance on probation.

“I anticipate he will be released today,’’ District Attorney Jackie Johnson said Tuesday.

Harrison ordered Clay to have no contact with the family of his victim.

And:

During the investigation of Swain’s death, an officer seized Clay’s clothes from Southeast Georgia Health System’s Brunswick hospital where they had been removed and bagged.

During a motions hearing, then-Superior Court Judge Amanda F. Williams ruled that prosecutors couldn’t use the clothing as evidence because it had been taken without a warrant. She also ruled out statements Clay made to investigating officers who, Williams said, had not properly advised Clay of his Miranda rights.

The Brunswick District Attorney’s Office appealed Williams’ ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing that officers could legally seize any evidence that is in plain sight without a search warrant.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled the clothing and statements could not be used in Clay’s trial.

Related posts are in the prosecution and trial indexes.