Posted on 03/09/2012 8:32:59 AM PST by SmithL
It's official.
Death is no longer a possible fate for three of four defendants in the January 20007 torture slayings of a Knox County couple.
Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price has filed notice of an intention to seek the death penalty as punishment in the deaths of Channon Christian, 21, and boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, only against alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson.
Price this month notified attorneys for Davidson's brother, Letalvis Cobbins, and Cobbins' friend, George Thomas, that he will push for a fate in their cases no more than life without possibility of parole. Because Cobbins' girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman, was acquitted of a direct role in the deaths, Price hasn't filed a notice of punishment sought in her case.
The move comes after a special judge ordered up new trials for all four defendants in the wake of a prescription pill abuse scandal involving the judge who once presided over the case. The pleadings filed by Price seem to settle the question of whether retrials might serve up a second shot at death as punishment for all four defendants.
Jurors chosen from two different counties rejected death as punishment in the cases of Cobbins and Thomas at their trials, presided over by Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner in 2009. A jury for fourth defendant Coleman also was chosen from outside Knox County and acquitted Coleman of any direct role in the slayings of Christian and Newsom.
Davidson, on the other hand, inexplicably sought a jury from Knox County, where upset over the killings ran high. He was sentenced to death.
Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner, who presided over all four trials, admitted last year that he, too, was a criminal addicted to prescription painkillers.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
The cruel and unusual punishment in this case is making the families of the victims sit through a series of new trials.
I am having trouble saying anything that wouldn’t be considered extremely racist.
Channon Christian, 21, and boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23 were innocent kids who had the right to live... these POS sure as hell do not.
Is this being appealed? Is there a new trial?
I guess I am asking if there is any hope these semi-humans will get what’s coming to them.
Feed these savages to the pigs? To fast. Stake ‘em out over an ant hill, apply liberal honey and let the little ant guys have at it. Might take days for these the bastards to die............
A disgrace that all four aren’t going to be executed and a greater disgrace that the family of the victims have to endure a second trial!
This should be made into a television movie, but Hollywood won’t touch it with a 100 foot stick because it goes against their agenda.
People need to be weary and alert to surroundings and what is going on. Being armed is also not a bad idea.
Sage advise and I am ALWAYS armed.
Thugs who raped, tortured and murdered the young couple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom
Channon Gail Christian and Christopher Newsom
Paragraph above should begin with ‘According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan...’
If Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had been black and their killers white, everyone in America would know their names. Because they were white and their killers are black, the media covered it up. It was only through the internet that the Knoxville masacre came out.
I sincerely hope they get done to them in prison what they did to this young couple.
Bastards. And by that I mean the animals that did it, Judge Baumgardner and the spineless DA.
Heres a link to the partial TBI file on the good Judge that was released for all to see. http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/270260-the-redacted-tbi-file-on-former-judge-richard.html
Neither Christian nor Neusom did nothing to deserve the brutal torture that lasted many hours. They were carjacked in a neighborhood that used to be safe years ago. This was a planned out murder/torture and they knew where too grab a victim.
I want to know why a Special Judge and a Prosecutor let Baumgartner get away with one of the most outrageous criminal acts done by a sitting judge in the history of this state? I don't trust the ones prosecuting the cases coming up nor do I have any confidence in the Judge which will be the same who let Baumgartner have a slap on the wrist.
This is an outrage and not one person in office in Tennessee in the state courts or justice system has brought any action against those who gave Baumgartner the Stay out of Jail deal. He needs to be locked up with the ones he convicted.
The ones I feel sorry for are the parents of the couple. GOD Bless them and give them strength. One of the dads didn't look like he was gonna make it through the first trials. Now thanks to a corrupt judge they must live that hell again while Baumgartner draws a pension for life. Where else but in government.
One of the convicted in this case {I can't remember which one} was first assigned to a medium security prison until one of the victims parents got wind of it and he got moved. The way the system in Tennessee works is the put the convict in a holding/processing facility for a month or two so their behavior can be monitored and risk assessed. IOW behave a few days and get a medium or minimal security facility never mind the severity of the crime. That part is not factored in.
About 24 years ago I worked nights at a all night store in the neighborhood they were taken in. Even back then I carried. A few months after I left the job the store across the road got hit and a clerk killed in broad daylight.
My nephew works a few blocks from where the torture/murders took place. One night a while back I had to go pick him up at work real late at night. I did not like where I was at I'll tell you that and took all precautions needed. The area the actual murder happened in has been bad news since the early 1970's. The distance from the neighborhood they were carjacked to neighborhood at the murder scene was likely less than 2 miles and on back city streets.
That was Cobbins. Latalvis Cobbins. Brother (1/2 brother?) of Lemarcus Davidson.
such a nice young man....
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