A Black man who was convicted of aggravated assault was granted a retrial in Tennessee because the jury deliberated his case in a room decorated with Confederate symbols, multiple reports said.
Tim Gilbert, 55, was convicted on charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and resisting arrest following a family altercation in his Nashville home in 2018, CNN reported, citing court documents. In June 2020, he was sentenced to six years in prison.
But on Friday, a Tennessee court of criminal appeals granted Gilbert a new trial after his lawyers argued that his right to a fair trial was violated because of the location of the jury deliberations, NBC News reported.
One of the lawyers, Evan Baddour, also told CNN that all 12 jurors deliberating the case were white.
The room, located in the Giles County Courthouse, is adorned with Confederate flags and multiple portraits of Confederate leaders, NBC News reported. CNN has published photos of the room.
It has for decades been maintained by a Confederate-heritage group called United Daughters of the Confederacy, NBC News and CNN reported.
“The symbols on that wall do nothing but embolden jurors to act on racial animus,” his lawyers had argued, as cited in a 31-page decision issued by the court last Friday, NBC News reported.
In its decision, the court said that allowing the jury to deliberate in this room “exposed the jury to extraneous prejudicial information and violated [Gilbert’s] constitutional rights to a fair trial conducted by an impartial jury,” The Guardian reported.