Accused killer loses appeal

ATLANTA - A Hall County man, accused of killing his wife, has lost an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Joseph Alan Edwards is charged with the beating death of his wife, Jamie, four years ago at their home in Countryside Mobile Home Park near Flowery Branch.

Edwards', who was arrested in Pennsylvania within a day of his wife's murder, challenged the makeup of the jury lists used by Hall County Superior Court.

But, the high court ruled against him. Edwards' attorney, Dan Sammons, said Thursday morning he had just received a copy of the ruling and could not comment on it, but that he expects the case to go to trial "after the first of the year."

According to the ruling, Edwards filed a pre-trial motion challenging the composition of both the grand and traverse (trial) jury lists in Hall County. At a hearing of the motion, Edwards presented testimony showing that the jury commission had undertaken two efforts to construct a grand jury list representing a fair cross-section of the county's residents who were eligible to serve as jurors.

Those efforts began when the judge currently presiding over this case found in another death penalty case that Hispanic persons comprised a cognizable group for jury composition purposes and that Hispanic persons were under-represented on Hall County's jury lists.

The jury commission's efforts were further shaped by this Court's interim review opinion in that case, wherein this Court affirmed the trial court's finding that Hispanic persons were a cognizable group, but concluded that the defendant did not show a legally-significant under-representation of Hispanic citizens.