The defendant in the Timberlake case was convicted by a jury of the murder of Herbert Bishop Edwards, which had taken place on September 20, 1979.

His defense was that he was at a courthouse renewing a pistol license at the time that the murder had taken place.

In Timberlake, the Court reiterated its earlier holdings in a long line of cases in which it had defined six criteria that a defendant must meet when requesting a retrial based on the discovery of new evidence: This list of six criteria has appeared, with almost identical wording, in a number of Georgia Supreme Court cases; see, e.g., 'Bell v. the State', 227 Ga. 800, 183 S.E.2d 357 (1971).

In the case of Davis v. the State, the defendant, who is under a sentence of death for a murder that he says that he did not commit,[3] filed an extraordinary motion for a new trial.

As a result, Davis' appeals are nearly exhausted, and he may be executed unless granted clemency by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.