Appellate court issues a stay in the Christian/Newsom caseTorture- slayings case scrutinizedBy Jamie Satterfield
Posted October 3, 2012 at 4 a.m.
A state appellate court has temporarily put the brakes on the retrials of three of four defendants in one of Knoxville's most horrific criminal cases.
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay in the proceedings involving alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson, his brother, Letalvis Cobbins, and Cobbins' pal, George Thomas, in the January 2007 torture-slayings that claimed the lives of a young Knox County couple.
The stay comes after the state Attorney General's Office filed an appeal of Senior Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood's refusal to step away from the cases.
According to the appellate court order, the judges want to give the trio's defenders time to respond to the appeal, but they are setting a short deadline — an indicator the court expects to entertain the appeal in an expedited fashion.
"The court has reviewed the petition and supporting documents and determined that answers from counsel for the defendants are necessary for the court's consideration of this appeal," the order states.
Attorneys for the defendants must respond by Monday, according to the order.
Blackwood ordered up new trials for all four defendants in the killings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, in the wake of revelations the judge who presided over their trials — former Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner — was himself a pill-popping criminal.
District Attorney General Randy Nichols' Office has been fighting the decision since Blackwood rendered it last December in all but the case involving defendant
Vanessa Coleman. Baumgartner was captured on videotape in that trial appearing largely incoherent when the jury returned its verdict, and he has since admitted taking Xanax, a prescription sedative, on that day in 2010.
...more at linkhttp://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/oct/0 ... -the-case/