She’s produced no list of witnesses she plans to call at trial. She has yet to look over the boxes of discovery turned over to her by the state.
She brings no documents, not even a legal pad, with her into the courtroom.
Yet on Monday, Tiffany Moss will represent herself as Gwinnett County prosecutors seek the death penalty against her.
Moss faces murder and child cruelty charges for allegedly starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter to death and then burning her body in 2013.
The young girl weighed only 32 pounds when her charred body was found in a dumpster outside the apartment where she lived.
Moss has said she is leaving her fate in God’s hands, rather than the two experienced public defenders who were initially assigned to represent her.
They work for the state’s capital defender office, which is credited as a primary reason no one has received a death sentence in Georgia in more than five years.
Death Penalty Drought
The last time a death sentence was handed down by a Georgia jury was March 2014 in Augusta against Adrian Hargrove, who committed a triple murder.
When asked why death sentences have become so rare, prosecutors and defense attorneys agree with Mauldin’s assessment: the availability of a life-without-parole sentence is seen by many as more acceptable.
Without a skillful and cohesive defense, Moss could break the drought and receive Georgia’s first death sentence in years.
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bill Rankin, April 15, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde