Retrial ordered after all-white jury convicts Black man in Confederacy-themed courtroom

Pulaski, Tennessee - A Black man in Tennessee was granted a retrial one year after an all-white jury convicted him of aggravated assault after debating his fate in a room replete with Confederate symbols.

Giles County Courthouse is located in Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the KKK.
Giles County Courthouse is located in Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the KKK.  © Wikimedia Commons/Ichabod

A Tennessee Criminal Appeals Court ruled on Friday that Tim Gilbert, a Black man, was due a retrial after he was sentenced in June 2020 to six months in jail on aggravated assault and other charges, The Tennessean reported.

The jury was all white, and details have since come to light that cast doubt on their ability to consider the case objectively.

Though Gilbert and his attorney didn't know it at the time, it turns out the jury was deciding the defendant's fate in a room adorned with a Confederate flag, a portrait of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and other related memorabilia.

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The Giles County Courthouse room is named after the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group established in the 1890s in Nashville to honor Confederate soldiers and fund Civil War monuments.

Pulaski itself is known as the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan.

Gilbert and his attorney appealed the ruling, arguing that jurors could not make an unbiased decision in such an environment.

They also argued that the court made a mistake by allowing a challenged witness statement

Friday's ruling comes over a year after Gilbert was denied a new trial.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons/Ichabod

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