Prosecutor Stephen Lanier's meaning was unmistakable when he urged jurors in north Georgia to sentence the defendant to death in part to deter other people "out there in the projects." Almost everyone in the public housing apartments near the scene of the killing of a 79-year-old woman in Rome, Georgia, was black, as was defendant Timothy Tyrone Foster. And after Lanier got through picking a jury of Foster's peers, all the jurors were white. So was the victim. Foster has been on death row for nearly 30 years, but his case still is making its way through the courts. The actions of Lanier and his staff will be in front of the Supreme Court on Monday, when the justices will consider whether the...
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