There's audacity, and there are just gross miscarriages of justice, but in the case of convicted murderer and rapist Keith Tharpe; there's certainly a combination of two as he's now had his case kicked from SCOTUS to the lower courts over a “racist” remark made by a juror.
Due to the alleged remarks of a juror, a man who undoubtedly is guilty of rape and homicide, has a chance at potential freedom.
59-year-old Keith Leroy Tharpe was sentenced to death in 1991 for the brutal murder of Jacquelin Freeman, and the kidnapping and rape of his estranged wife.
Tharpe’s wife left him on August 28, 1990, and moved in with her mother. Following various threats of violence, made by the Tharpe, to both his wife and her family, a peace warrant was taken out against him.
At that time, Tharpe was ordered not to have any contact with his soon-to-be ex-wife or her family. Tharpe of course ignored this order, and called his wife on September 24th of 1990 to argue with her, saying if she wanted to “play dirty,” he would show her “what dirty was.”
On the morning of the 25th, his wife and her sister-in-law were driving to work together when Tharpe used his vehicle to block theirs and force them to stop. He got out of his vehicle, armed with a shotgun.
According to court documents, Tharpe had apparently been under the influence of drugs and ordered them out of their vehicle.
After telling the sister-in-law he was going to “fuck you up,” he grabbed her and took her to the rear of his vehicle, where he shot her. He rolled her into a ditch, reloaded the shotgun, and shot her again, killing her.
That's when Tharpe grabbed his estranged wife, tossing her into the trunk of his car.
He then drove away and attempted to rent a motel room, but was denied due to the motel having no vacancies.
With his wife in the trunk, he parked by the side of the road, beat her, and raped her.
Afterward, he drove to Macon, Georgia, where he tried to force his wife to obtain money from her credit union. Instead, she called the police.
After authorities arrived, Tharpe was arrested, and even admitted to the atrocities. He then was provided an attorney, who had argued that he was mentally unfit for trial, unsuccessfully.
A nine-day trial occurred, where Tharpe was convicted of malice murder and two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, both capital felonies, and sentenced to death.
Later, a U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia denied Tharpe’s writ of habeas corpus petition, which he claimed 2aw based on juror bias, and the finding was affirmed by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
After several petitions from Tharpe for a new trial, the Department of Corrections Commissioner, Gregory Dozier, finally set the execution date for Tuesday, September 26th of 2017 at 7 PM at the Jackson County Prison, according to<a href="http://www.11alive.com/mobile/article/news/local/execution-date-set-for-man-convicted-in-decades-old-grisly-murder/471699801"> Local NBC 11</a>.
Of course, that execution was halted after Civil Rights groups made the claim that one of the jurors in the case had called Tharpe the “N-Word” during the trial when he was seeking an appeal.
Seven years later, defense attorneys interviewed juror Barney Gattie, who is white. In a sworn affidavit Gattie stated that “there are two types of black people. One is Black folks and two are [N-word],” the according to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Gattie also said that Tharpe “wasn’t in the good black folk's category in my book,” which is blatantly obvious by the fact that he raped his wife, and murdered her sister.
The attorneys for Tharpe also said in an affidavit that Gattie not only used racial slurs to refer to black people but that he told the attorneys that he had “wondered if black people even have souls.”
Those remarks caused controversy, which the group backing Tharpe’s “right” for an appeal said he was denied because jurors were “racist”.
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 on Monday for the death row prisoner to have another chance in court to prove that his death sentence ruling was tainted by racial hatred.
The fact that this we to the Supreme Court at all; is shocking, but the fact that SCOTUS actually ended up siding with the inmate, Keith Tharpe; is absolutely preposterous.
Look, the juror shouldn't have said what he said, that's clear. It should have been public, he should have been charged with contempt of court, or potentially faced a fine; I'm not a legal scholar, but it's certainly no reason to allow a one-hundred-percent guilty rapist and murderer an appeal.
The man's spent since 1991 behind bars already draining the taxpayers, when he should have been executed immediately.
The fact of the matter is, the majority of SCOTUS decided that Tharpe has the right to an appeal.
However, likely the only SCOTUS member with sanity in the case was actually a Black man, the historic Clarence Thomas himself, who blasted SCOTUS for what he believes is essentially the court virtue-signaling because the defendant was Black.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Supreme Court is giving a death row prisoner in Georgia renewed life because of a juror's racist comments. <a href="https://t.co/pZKBnpaftX">https://t.co/pZKBnpaftX</a></p>— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) <a href="https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/950419400670302208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Thomas, the court’s only Black justice, along with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, disagreed with the court’s reprieve. The decision to delay’s Tharpe’s death was no more than “ceremonial handwringing” and “a useless do-over,” Clarence wrote in a 13-page dissent, according to the<a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/01/court-sends-case-georgia-death-row-inmate-back-lower-courts-thomas-dissent/#more-265424"> SCOTUS Blog</a>. “The court must be disturbed by the racist rhetoric in that affidavit, and must want to do something about it,” Thomas wrote. “But the court’s decision is no profile in moral courage.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A divided Supreme Court revives the case of a death row inmate, who argued that a juror voted to put him to death because of his race <a href="https://t.co/yTJ1ptL9Qr">https://t.co/yTJ1ptL9Qr</a> <a href="https://t.co/yU8S8V07pf">pic.twitter.com/yU8S8V07pf</a></p>— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/950418852214648832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Thomas accused his colleagues of “bending the rules” to show their “concern for racial justice.”
This is Justice Thomas calling the six left-leaning Justices who voted on the side of the rapist and murderer, virtue signalers.
God bless Justice Thomas for his honesty, and this outcome is a travesty. That after nearly thirty years, a rapist and murderer even has a chance at an appeal at all. What a joke.
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Do you even know what voir dire is for? Stop being retarded