Kenneth Fults, a Georgia inmate on death row for shooting a woman in the back of the head five times, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution after racist comments from a juror.
Fults, a black man, was scheduled to be executed for the 1996 murder of 19 year old neighbor Cathy Bounds, a white woman. Court documents say Fults forced his way into Bounds’ home with burglary intent. After Bounds cooperated and offered up all of her jewelry and worthy possessions, she begged for her life, but Fults killed her anyway. He subsequently plead guilty and was sentenced to death.
One of the jurors, Thomas Buffington, who voted for the death penalty wrote in a court sworn affidavit “I don’t know if [Fults] ever killed anybody, but that n*gger got just what should have happened. Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that’s what that nigger deserved.”
The problem with this, aside from the blatant racism, is that Buffington was asked prior to jury assignment if he had any racial prejudices. He said no. The affidavit with the above racial slurs was signed in 2005, he has sense passed away.
Fults and his attorneys argue the juror’s racism tainted the trial and should render the execution void. He is therefore asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene — a request the state opposes.
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case next term, Peña Rodriguez v. Colorado, regarding a Colorado juror who made racist remark about Mexicans during jury deliberations. Fults asked that the court either hear his case or allow his execution to be put off until after the Colorado case reaches a resolve.
Unfortunately, he did not get his way. 47-year-old Kenneth Fults was executed at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. His time of death at 7:37 p.m.
