No. 19-7795October Term 2019Decided Apr 20, 2020Updated Jan 10, 2020
Foster v. Chapman
This is a procedural filing where a party is asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision while also requesting permission to proceed without paying standard court fees due to financial hardship.
Case status
Decided · April 20, 2020
- Current stage
- Decided
- Latest event
- Decision released Apr 20, 2020
- What it's about
This is a procedural filing where a party is asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision while also requesting permission to proceed without paying standard court fees due to financial hardship.
Question presented
1. Whether Mr. Foster was denied a fair trial due to prosecutorial misconduct where the assistant prosecutor intentionally provided an erroneous definition for unlawful imprisonment to the jury thereby creating confusion and an unreliable verdict? 2. Whether Mr. Foster's Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel was violated by trial counsel's failure to object to the assistant prosecutor's misconduct in providing an erroneous definition for the offense of unlawful imprisonment to the jury? 3. Whether there was ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failure to investigate exculpatory evidence? 4. Whether there was ineffective assistance of appellate counsel? 5. Whether there was prosecutor misconduct for violation of discovery rules by failure to produce requested police record? 6. Whether the prosecutor demonstrated misconduct by the use of perjured testimony to capitalize a conviction?
- Case path
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit / Decision released Apr 20, 2020
- Area
Decided Supreme Court case
Timing
Decided April 20, 2020
The Court released its decision on April 20, 2020 without hearing oral argument.
Documents
Related cases




Grounding
- Grounding
- Primary-source trail available.
- Note
- Plain-English explainer. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.
- Checked
- Jul 25, 2026
- Method
- Methodology