Later this week, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider Tharpe v. Ford, a Georgia death penalty case involving a juror who stated in a sworn affidavit that he considered defendant Keith Tharpe to be a “[n-word]” who deserved to die and “wondered if Black people even have souls.”
The racial prejudice in Mr. Tharpe’s case has drawn attention from a wide range of prominent voices including David Burge, a conservative who formerly chaired the Georgia Republican Party’s 5th Congressional District. Mr. Burge recently published a powerful op-ed for Newsweek calling on the Supreme Court to step in and prevent the execution of Mr. Tharpe:
As a conservative, I strongly believe that the laws that govern us must be followed and applied in a fair and consistent manner to all citizens. As such, it is obvious to me that jurors who hold racially biased beliefs can never be allowed to judge a case in which their views might influence their verdict….
Where there is documented proof of racial bias on a jury, as there is here, basic fairness demands that a court consider the impact of the juror’s bias on the final verdict.
As Mr. Burge points out in his op-ed, incredibly, no state or federal court has yet even considered whether Mr. Tharpe’s death sentence is invalid due to this juror’s openly racist views.
In another important op-ed for the New York Times, Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy explains how the Supreme Court has previously ruled in another case that courts must consider serious allegations of racial juror bias because racial bias “implicates unique historical, constitutional and institutional concerns.”
After seeing the racist affidavit from this juror, could any reasonable person conclude that Mr. Tharpe’s verdict is untainted by racial prejudice? Professor Kennedy gives us a clear answer:
The impending execution of Keith Tharpe cannot pass that test. There is the stench of prejudice, not just a whiff. In this case, remember, one of the 12 people who voted for death voluntarily admitted that he thought of Mr. Tharpe as a “n****r” and “wondered if black people have souls.” Under these circumstances an execution would certainly be a miscarriage of justice. The Supreme Court must intervene out of an elemental embrace of due process.
For the sake of Mr. Tharpe and the United States, let’s hope they do.