Georgia prisoner set to die after 1991 trial marked by racial bias

Keith Leroy Tharpe, 59, was convicted of killing by jury that included man who said in 1998 affidavit that he wondered if black people ‘even have souls’

Jamiles Lartey in New York and agencies
Tuesday 26 September 2017 19.28 BST

A Georgia prisoner whose jury trial was marred by racial bias was set to be executed on Tuesday night, barring an eleventh-hour intervention by the state or the US supreme court.

Keith Leroy Tharpe, 59, lost his bid for clemency on Monday before the state board of pardons and parole. He was convicted in 1991 of the shooting death of his sister-in-law, Jacquelyn Freeman, in September 1990.

One of the points Tharpe’s attorneys asked the state board to consider was that a juror in the case, Barney Gattie, who has since died, said in an affidavit signed in May 1998: “After studying the Bible, I have wondered if black people even have souls.”

Gattie allegedly freely used racial slurs and in the affidavit said Freeman came from a family of “nice black folks”. Tharpe, he said, “wasn’t in the ‘good’ black folks category in my book” and so should be executed.

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