Posted on 06/04/2012 3:20:15 PM PDT by abb
KNOXVILLE — A special judge has decided to — again — grant new trials in one of Knoxville’s most high-profile cases, and state prosecutors are responding by asking him to step down from the case.
A motion filed late Friday afternoon in Knox County Criminal Court reveals that Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood is planning to enter an order granting new trials in the January 2007 torture slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, without holding a hearing and despite a recent state Supreme Court ruling faulting his legal reasoning.
Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price, in turn, is asking Blackwood to recuse himself from the case, accusing the special judge of all manner of judicial misconduct.
“The willful failure of this court to follow the Tennessee Supreme Court’s guidance indicates this court has lost all semblance of fairness and impartiality,” Price wrote. “The court’s clearly stated and predetermined position is that new trials will be granted regardless of any law, evidence or argument to the contrary.”
Blackwood granted each of four defendants in the Christian/Newsom case new trials in December. He cited two reasons — the misconduct of former Judge Richard Baumgartner, who presided over the original trials, created structural error that deprived the defendants a constitutionally sound trial and, because Baumgartner had not yet approved the verdicts as “13th juror,” Blackwood opined he could not step into that role.
Baumgartner stepped down after a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe revealed he was committing crimes including doctor shopping, buying pills from a felon and using his mistress — a graduate of his Drug Court program — to procure more pills.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Channon Christian, Christopher Newsom murders
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/news/local/channon-christian-christopher-newsom-murders/
Victim’s and Perps pictures at link.
This is an absolutely sickening preversion of justice if this is messed up by technicalities. If you are not familiar with the case, it is the most brutal vicious crime I have ever read about.
It is a Race Hate Crime......
Leftist libs ain’t gonna like this cropping up with negative inplications for Obama, Holder and his people just before the election. It’s wacist I tell you, wacist.
Quite familiar. I’ve been following the case since 2007.
GOD be with the Christian and Newsome families. If new trials are ordered and the State Court of Appeals doesn't step in again then they face this again. I certainly hope a new judge is appointed too take over the case immediately after/if the decession is made.
I’m torn, but running the trial through a second time (scarcely anybody questions what the outcome would be) is a tiny price to pay for letting misconduct like Baumgartner’s have consequences. The other road is to encourage more wink and nod at a second Baumgartner. Judges getting themselves hosed does not endanger merely their tenure, but their credibility.
If anybody should be pilloried and hanged in effigy it’s Baumgartner. As well as the other parts of the body politic that let him hang on way too long.
Hmm, so Blackwood may have dirty hands too.
Of course he will not do anything till forced (impropriety? what impropriety?) It sucks like an F5 tornado that this case of all cases had to get caught up in the taint. A second trial, with an unrelated judge, may be the only way to really clear out the stink.
Take the wind out of the Trayvon Martin industrial complex.
As guilty as I think the convicted are about the crime, the judge who convicted them was compromised in his ability to determine guilt because of his drug addiction, therefore the new judge is probably correct in ordering a new trial, unfortunately.
Hopefully, the new judge will come to the same conclusion and nothing changes.
Anybody who has a problem with it can thank the druggie judge.
OK, I did not realise the Judge had such a problem.
I am still having a hard time trying to get my mind around such a vicious crime.
If the death penalty was ever warranted, it is here.
Can you imagine how the families feel after this length of time.
Give em’ all the death penalty. This is a very disturbing and sick crime.
Sorry.
There is a huge distrust in the air right now thats for sure. Although I suspect Bumgartner isn't the only one on the bench in East Tennessee who has a sobriety issue. The fact is though 12 jurors found the accused guilty.
A couple of them are brothers, with different surnames...
This was definitely a case where a few eggs need to be broken to make that omelet. No kind of punishment would be too harsh for these scumbags. And that includes a public hanging.
Wolf Blitzer
Brian Willams
Rachel Maddow
Ed Schltz
Rev. Al and Jesse
...all missed (ignored) it.
Yes, they are covering for Obozo. A black on white racist attack does not fit his script for re-election.
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