correspondent tim o'brien has the story. >> reporter: it was in 1986 in rome georgia, 79-year-old queente had just returned home to confront a burglar who would take her life. prosecutors said it was this man, timothy foster, 18 years old at the time. foster would be tried, convicted and sentenced to die by an all white jury. the u.s. supreme court had ruled, only four months before this crime was committed, that while lawyers had wide latitude in selecting juries and may even excuse some prospective jurors without explaining why, race can never be a factor. should it appear that race be the motive, the attorney must be able to provide race neutral reasons. >> the reasons given here, some are false, some are contradictory. in fact, on their list of people they were definitely going to strike the five african americans were the first five listed. and there was only one other person on the list and it was a white woman. >> reporter: stephen bright runs the southern center for human rights in atlanta and will argue foster's case before the supreme court. proving jurors were removed because