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A Knox County jury on Tuesday declared Eric Boyd guilty in the 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The seven-woman, five-man jury had deliberated since Monday before returning its verdict of first-degree murder in the Knox County Criminal Court trial on Tuesday afternoon. The verdict carries an automatic life sentence for each of the two slayings. Judge Bob McGee will decide at a Sept. 18 sentencing hearing whether those two life sentences should be stacked one onto the other and what, if any, extra punishment Boyd should receive for the related crimes, including kidnapping and rape. Boyd is...

Questions raised about attacks that already are happening Al [Sharpton] and Jesse [Jackson] may worry that the acquittal of George Zimmerman will usher in a new era of white-on-black violence in America. After all, the local CBS affiliate is reporting that police officers already are training for violence. “There has been some talk among the officers that we believe that this training has to do with the fact that there might be some type of civil unrest, but we are hoping that that doesn’t happen,” said Javier Ortiz with the Fraternal Order of Police. The affiliate also said in Broward...

The George Zimmerman trial is a TV ratings bonanza. We are told that this is an important trial because… Well, because the liberal ruling class and the race hustlers who work in concert to Balkanize this nation—race, gender, religion, whatever works—tell us that this is a narrative about race relations in America. George Zimmerman is being cast as a post-modern Bull Connor. Forget that Zimmerman is dark-skinned and Hispanic. Ignore the inconvenient fact that Zimmerman mentored young black kids. Forget that it’s Trayvon Martin who was the racist, referring to Zimmerman as a “creepy-ass cracker.” Barack Hussein Obama most helpfully...

The families of a young couple who were raped and tortured to death have been banned from wearing buttons of the victims in the front row of the courtroom during one of the suspect's retrials. Senior Judge Walter Kurtz has ruled that if relatives of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, wear the badges, they must sit 'two or three rows' behind suspect George Thomas. If they do not wear the badges, which they have sported at numerous trials for the accused murderers in the past, they can sit at the front of the Knoxville, Tennessee courtroom. In previous...

KNOXVILLE (AP) - The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has said that it won't take up an extraordinary appeal involving a lower court's decision to throw out convictions in the murders of a Knoxville couple who was kidnapped and sexually tortured. Friday's split court decision is a setback for Knox County prosecutors who were hoping that they wouldn't be forced to retry cases heard by a judge who is said to have been high on prescription drugs.

One judge lied for her, had sex with her and shared painkillers with her. Another sent her to prison Wednesday. Knox County Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz ordered Deena Castleman, 37, to serve six years for a slew of convictions, including aggravated burglary, theft, DUI and possession of prescription painkillers. Castleman racked up all those charges while engaged in a relationship with former Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner that included sex and both pill-procuring for him and pill-using with him, according to portions of a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe made public earlier this month. At least one of...

KNOXVILLE — A Tennessee judge was so addicted to prescription drugs during his final two years on the bench, he was having sex and buying pills during courtroom breaks, at times purchasing from convicts he had previously sentenced, an investigation found. His behavior has called into question many of the cases he presided over, including one of Knoxville's most notorious murders. Many people didn't realize Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner had a problem until he stepped down from the bench and pleaded guilty in March 2011 to a single count of official misconduct. It would be another eight months before...

Exclusive: Ben Kinchlow weighs in on Martin-Zimmerman issue, Iranian-Israeli crises I am sitting outside a coffee shop, having a cup of hot tea with my business partner. Lying on the table is my video-enabled iPhone with Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, iCal, email alerts and 1247 contacts with texting capability. Let us not forget news alerts from Fox and CNN, plus apps and email alerts from a couple of consul general offices and other news sources, including the Israeli GPO (government press office) and the Jerusalem Post. My partner and I have been busy resolving several issues, including the Iranian/Israeli crises. “Do...

Former Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner is now under federal probe, officials confirmed Friday. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which spearheaded an investigation of the disgraced judge for violations of state law, is continuing its probe. This time, however, agents are working at the direction of federal prosecutors, spokeswoman Kristin Helm said. "The case remains open and ongoing, and TBI agents are continuing to investigate Baumgartner," Helm said in an email. "Specifically, we are looking at possible federal violations with the U.S. Attorney's Office." David Jennings, a supervisor with the Knoxville U.S. Attorney's Office, said he could "neither...

KNOXVILLE — A judge said today he has no authority to make public the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's file on former judge Richard Baumgartner. "This court has no authority whatsoever to decide on its own, 'I'm going to let the public see this file,'" Special Judge John Kerry Blackwood said at a specially-called hearing in Knox County Criminal Court. Blackwood said the portions of the file not made public contain phone records and recorded conversations in which Baumgartner discusses sex with two women and makes "crude remarks" about people. "What you're not going to find (in the TBI file) is...

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,...

Court of secrecy: How Richard Baumgartner, a drug-addicted judge, stayed on the bench despite warningsIt was a Thursday night in January 2010 when the phone rang at the Andersonville home of then-Knox County Sheriff's Office courtroom security officer Meredith Driskell. "He said, 'I'm coming to get those pills.' He told me to put them in a brown paper bag. I told him no ... but he told me I was going to," she recalled when contacted by the News Sentinel. "So, I put them in a brown paper bag and handed it to him, my husband, who hadn't been in...

KNOXVILLE — A special judge today granted new trials for four defendants in the 2007 torture-slaying cases, agreeing with lawyers that presiding Judge Richard Baumgartner's conduct led to fundamental structural flaws in the prosecutions. Jon Kerry Blackwood, his voice at times rising to a shout, said Baumgartner was obviously intoxicated in 2009 and 2010 while Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman were being prosecuted.

KNOXVILLE — A special judge today granted new trials for four defendants in the 2007 torture-slaying cases, agreeing with lawyers that presiding Judge Richard Baumgartner's conduct led to fundamental structural flaws in the prosecutions. Jon Kerry Blackwood, his voice at times rising to a shout, said Baumgartner was obviously intoxicated in 2009 and 2010 while Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman were being prosecuted. Baumgartner used defendants under his influence to procure pills to satisfy his habit, Blackwood said, citing a TBI investigation. He engaged in sex with one defendant, Deena Castleman, who helped him satisfy his...

A Knox County jury delivered the death sentence this afternoon to the ringleader in the torture slayings of a young Knoxville couple following a carjacking. The same panel of seven men and five women who convicted Lemaricus Davidson, 28, in the 2007 attack on University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, decided his fate. Davidson was found guilty of more than 30 counts, including felony murder and premeditated murder of each victim. The jury had a choice of a life sentence mandating a minimum of 51 years in prison, life without parole with no...

KNOXVILLE - A Knox County jury this afternoon sentenced convicted torture-slaying ringleader Lemaricus Davidson to death by lethal injection for the January 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The jury of five women and seven men deliberated about four hours before returning its decision to a packed courtroom. “The punishment is death,” the jury foreman said. The victims' families gasped at the verdict, but Davidson showed no reaction. Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner admonished those in the courtroom to control any outburst. “The murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel,” the foreman said, reading from the verdict form....

KNOXVILLE - A Knox County jury this afternoon sentenced convicted torture-slaying ringleader Lemaricus Davidson to death by lethal injection for the January 2007 murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. The jury of five women and seven men deliberated about four hours before returning its decision to a packed courtroom. “The punishment is death,” the jury foreman said.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee man convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder charges in the fatal carjacking of a couple on a date has been sentenced to death. The defendant, 28-year-old Lemaricus Davidson, showed no reaction Friday as jurors announced the death sentences for the murders of 21-year-old college student Channon Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Christopher Newsom. Davidson was found guilty of abducting the couple in Knoxville during a 2007 carjacking by several armed men.

KNOXVILLE — The case against the alleged leader in the torture slaying of a young Knoxville couple went to the jury Tuesday with the defense trying to poke holes in a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Lemaricus Davidson, 28, faced 38 counts including kidnapping, theft, rape and murder in the January 2007 carjacking deaths of University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23. The counts were consolidated from an original 46. The state intends to seek the death penalty if he is convicted. The case has touched a racial nerve because the defendants are black and...

Tennessee Jury Lets Torturer-Murderer-Rapist Live, to Prey on Others August 28, 12:24 Some juries are indulgent towards even the most vicious and plainly-guilty criminals. A Nashville jury just let a nightmarishly-evil torturer-murderer-rapist, Letalvis Cobbins, escape the death penalty in the rapes, torture, mutilation, and murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian. Now, he can spend the rest of his life raping and preying on vulnerable prison inmates, like first-time offenders. The jurors who blocked the death penalty may have mistakenly believed that they were sophisticated and progressive by rejecting the death penalty, but in truth, they were being cruel, since,...