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No. 19-7795October Term 2019Decided Apr 20, 2020Updated Jan 10, 2020

Docket 19-7795October Term 2019 (2019–2020)

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
Case Accepted
Arguments
Decision ReleasedApr 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.

Grounding

Grounding
Primary-source trail available.
Note
Plain-English explainer. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.
Checked
Jul 25, 2026
Primary materials4