Posted on 08/25/2009 7:40:09 AM PDT by jessduntno
Torture-slaying trial, Day 8: Jurors resume deliberations By News Sentinel staff Posted August 25, 2009 at 9:11 a.m.
KNOXVILLE — Jurors in the torture-slaying trial of Letalvis Cobbins resumed deliberations this morning.
The panel from Davidson County deliberated about seven and a half hours Monday, ending the day without a verdict before returning to the hotel where they have been sequestered for more than a week.
Testimony wrapped up Saturday with Cobbins, 26, taking the stand in his own defense.
Cobbins is accused of taking part in the January 2007 kidnapping, rape and slaying of Channon Christian, 21,and Christopher Newsom, 23. The young couple were carjacked while outside a Washington Pike apartment complex and then taken to a Chipman Street house where Cobbins’ brother Lemaricus Davidson lived.
Newsom was shot to death and left along railroad tracks near the house. Christian was left to suffocate to death in a trash can inside the home.
Cobbins has admitted raping Christian inside the house, although he testified Saturday that she offered him the oral sex if he could help ensure her freedom. Christian and Newsom did not know Cobbins, Davidson or their co-defendants, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman, who await trial.
If jurors convict Cobbins of first-degree murder, they will shift into a penalty phase in which they will consider evidence about whether he should be executed. Prosecutors will try to show his crimes are so heinous he deserves death, while defense attorneys will try to counter with mitigating facts.
Sixteen people were impaneled last week at the trial’s start. A woman juror, however, bowed out after Friday’s graphic photographic evidence of the couple’s rape injuries. Fifteen jurors remain, but only 12 are taking part in the deliberations.
More details as they develop online and in Wednesday’s News Sentinel.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Yep.
Your assumption that race wasn't a prime motivation in this crime is naive and dangerous.
Right. So the remedy is for them to be fair, and not do it in a white on black case, either; not to do it in this case, too.
I’m assuming no such thing. Race might have played a role in this. How much or how little is difficult to say, but I can guess somewhat. I’ll reiterate my theory: They figured white people would have lots of money, perhaps to feed their habit, which was awake and screaming through their veins. They invade the house. They discover that these white people are broke, contrary to all their cherished beliefs about the two races’ socio-economic differences, and they’re so mad that they start with getting rough, escalate to getting mideival, and conclude with getting feral.
I define “hate crime” as a crime committed in order to make a statement, start a war, or simply vent racial or religious malice. So defined, I believe that classification should be deliberately ignored. You want to start a race war? You want to make a statement about how evil “those people” are? Shut up. Sit down. Let your lawyer speak, and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. Counselor, how does your client plead? That is how you deal with “hate crimes”.
here we have an extremely racist crime perpetuated by black savages on two helpless white kids and all some chumps here can parrot that “they don't care about the race” part/
LOOK AT ME!!!LOOK AT ME!!!
Did I get the right answer on the race question? Can I pass Go now?
Goddam it..this is what is wrong with America....right here.
Absolute paralysis over race...unable to address the 1000 pound gorilla in the closet when it is sitting on your face since folks are soooooooooooooooooooo scared of being called racist. They'd rather be accused of anything but racist or bigot...pure cowards.
You idiots...if ever there was a race crime, this is it?
have any of you numbnuts read the allegations of what these monsters said about their victims?
I reckon not...you're too busy on all fours with putting on your kumbaya kneepads.
Not me...but there ain't many like me left. Youngsters are completely and utterly brainwashed and such easy targets.
note for the braindead...blacks from David Banner to Bill Cosby don't respect white rollover guilt laden sissies...they think you are fools.
Guess who in the media has suppressed this race crime of the century along with Wichita (where similar comments were made by the animals). The white pups like some freepers in the media and the minorities in the media who can't take the heat when their own kind go off the reservation.
So much for post racial...on their terms. We are living it. Just ask Bro and Eric....no wait, they are too busy chasing CIA torture phantoms..
This was in your neck of the woods.
Good on ya’ for expressing your opinion.
May it always be thus...
nothing personal since you are in the Holy Land where you have your own identity violence issues but black on white crime here is very much about race and it dwarfs whatever we did bad to a few of them in the past 100 years...exponentially. I’d invite you over and turn you loose in Jackson Mississippi at nite if you’d like It’d be like donning yer Yarmulke and parading around a martyr’s funeral in Gaza in broad daylight if you get my drift החבר שלי
it’s nuts how folks even here can’t face up to the reality that is our sad state of affairs at certain levels of race relations
and it affects how we handle anything with anyone non white or even non Christian for that matter
it has emasculated reality and turned the truth into some insane distorted myth
You know what I would like?
UTOPIA!
Unfortunately, the utopia that we appear to have in our future is detrimental to our nation’s health.
Those of us with the same mindset have been emasculated in the past,
but we are standing up now!
And we will continue to STAND UP!
Keep watching the Town “Hells”. ;o)
I believe we are winning that particular battle and they lost one senate vote earlier this evening they can’t replace till 2010..which will be too late.
you should see the looks I get from my Obama Joker Socialism sticker on the truck...lol
90% are very positive..some bros glared at me today
they can get over it....8 years of Bush is a chimp, village idiot, F the president, M for Moron, Cheney is Satan and so forth and now they get some of their own medicine...hope they like it
Agree the reason this nation is where we are today. This is the race driven crime of the century thus far. Savage torture an hate of these two victims RACE based on the suspects own statements.
The trash makes these statements because they know RACE will play a part in their defense.
I believe there is a reason why black-on-white rape is much more common than the converse, and that there is a reason the male was raped in this case, and that's because rape is a crime of humiliation, an exercise of sexual power. It was not random that this crime, with these victims, escalated to this degree of savagery. I'll even grant you that it may not have started out with that intent, but the racial hatred in these people was bound to come out.
Motive is often considered as an aggravating/mitigating factor in crimes like these, and likely influences juries' thinking on punishment. I think that racial hatred is an extremely pernicious motive, bordering on terroristic, and I would believe that just as strongly if the races in this crime were reversed.
I would laugh out loud at your infinite naivete, if the subject matter were not so grim and cruel.
Your comment is on the order of "Hitler might have been an anti-semite, but..."
Some folks can’t grasp reality no matter what.
Their post racial PC brainwashing would have them singing kumbaya with home invaders in the living room, while their children were being raped, tortured and murdered in the next room.
The suffering
Using gruesome photographs displayed on a movie-size screen, Mileusnic-Polchan detailed that suffering in a courtroom packed with relatives and friends of the slain couple.
Newsom, she said, was raped both by an object and at least one person. DNA tests were inconclusive as to identity. The sexual assault would have occurred soon after the kidnapping and, at most, a couple of hours before his death, she said.
His hands were tied behind his back. His ankles eventually were bound with a belt. Socks were stuffed in his mouth. A bandana was tied around his eyes. A sweatshirt was placed over his head and tied with his own shoelaces around his neck. He was shot three times--once in the lower back, once in the upper back shoulder near his neck, and once execution-style to the side of his head. His body was then set on fire.
Mileusnic-Polchan said Christian was kept alive for more than 12 hours and perhaps as long as a full day. The attack on her took place over time, she said.
Early on in the attack, she was orally raped, causing a membrane in her mouth to be torn, the doctor testified. She was raped vaginally and anally--more than once--over the course of her captivity, Mileusnic-Polchan said. At some point a few hours before her death, someone attacked her genital region, likely kicking her and perhaps even striking that area with an object, she said.
"This was no simple rape," she said.
Christian was hog-tied and her lower body stuffed inside five different large black trash bags. A small white plastic grocery bag was wrapped around her face, and she was pushed down into a trash can. The medical examiner said she suffocated to death. Her eyes were still partially open when she died.
Closing arguments are expected to begin today.
Channon ChristianChristopher Newsom
Ironic that both of those kids had "Christ" in their names, isn't it???
“This was no simple rape,” she said.
The poor kids were killed by these animals because they were white. This kind of savagery comes only from rage. Bless them and their families. I hope these killing beasts will be put down soon, like the mad dogs they are.
great line
Then he looked at the reporter and said were all Rambo we're ready and this isn't going to happen to one of us again. He asked the reporter do you carry a gun? You better start to that effect you don't know who you'll face coming out of a Walmart.
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