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The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday signaled a willingness to at least consider the state Attorney General's Office's bid to appeal a decision ordering new trials in the January 2007 torture slayings of a Knox County couple. Rather than dismissing at the onset the state's request to appeal Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood's ruling upending convictions in the slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, the state's high court is inviting debate on the issue instead. In an order released Tuesday, the court is requiring attorneys for the defendants at issue in the case to respond to the...

Once a revered Knox County Criminal Court judge, Richard Baumgartner on Tuesday shuffled into a federal courtroom in shackles, accused of covering up the drug-trafficking crimes of the mistress he met via a Drug Court program he helped found. Baumgartner, who sent thousands of people to prison in his nearly two-decade-long tenure as judge, was arrested Tuesday as he drove away from his East Knox County farm and hauled into U.S. District Court with shackles on his feet and a chain wrapped around his belly and connected to handcuffs. He said little during his appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford...

KNOXVILLE (WATE) - There's potential for much more fallout from the downfall of ex-Knox County Judge Richard Baumgartner. His addiction to pain pills means a number of people convicted in his courtroom will get new trials. That includes the four defendants in the Christian-Newsom murders. Most recently Paul Jerome Johnson, Jr., learned he'll get a new trial after being convicted in the death of a toddler. Hundreds, if not thousands, of guilty pleas accepted in Baumgartner's courtroom could face re-trial. "Literally, I could be talking about 1,000 cases. So it is very, very serious, not only in the manpower that it will take,...

Stuck in the midst of a public relations nightmare and rebuffed at every legal turn, the second highest in command in the Knox County District Attorney General's Office took aim at a judge and reporter in an email obtained by the News Sentinel. John Gill, special counsel to District Attorney General Randy Nichols, complained in a March email to the state Attorney General's Office about Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood, who ordered up new trials in the January 2007 slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, and about the News Sentinel, which has reported on the ongoing proceedings....

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.

KNOXVILLE (WATE) - LeMaricus Davidson pleaded guilty Wednesday to robbing a Pizza Hut a day after the Christian-Newsom murders, in which he faces a second trial. Davidson, who had a felony record, could receive eight years for the robbery. He pleaded to charges of aggravated robbery, aggravated assault and possession of gun. He will serve his term concurrent with whatever sentence he's expected to receive for the slayings of Channon Christian and her boyfriend, Chris Newsom.The couple was carjacked on January 7, 2007, taken to Davidson's rental house, tortured and killed, according to investigators. Davidson is again facing the death penalty in the case. He and three defendants were...

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.

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 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...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.(WVLT) -- The four people convicted of the torture and killing of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom will stand trial again. Saying he feels sorry for the families and all they've been through, Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood granted the defendants' motion for new trials Thursday afternoon following a two-hour description of Judge Richard Baumgartner's alleged drug activities, citing "structural errors" in the trials. Hearings for the new trials are set for January 12 at 9:30 a.m. Baumgartner, who presided over all of the cases, lost his license earlier this year after pleading guilty to drug charges. "I don't know...

How the jury voted in each of the charges in the torture-slaying trial of Lemaricus Davidson.Count 1: First degree felony murder of Hugh Christopher Newsom during the perpetration of robbery of Hugh Christopher NewsomA. Guilty of First Degree Felony Murder of Hugh Christopher Newsom, during the perpetration of Robbery of Hugh Christopher Newsom.[Guilty on all 46 counts including rape and torture of both victims, male and female]Count 29: Aggravated rape of Hugh Christopher Newsom by coercive anal penetration, while aided and abetted by one or more personsB. Guilty of Facilitation of Aggravated Rape of Hugh Christopher Newsom, by coercive anal...

This bastard murdered this young woman, and is accompliced to the murder of her boyfriend. It is now in the hands of the jury. 3 more are involved. It is a sad place to acknowledge. I stayed quiet until this trial was over. The anger is real.

Does anyone remember the white couple that got abducted, raped, and killed by the three African American guys somewhere in the south? I think they found some of the couple's body parts in a garbage can at one of the alleged criminal's house. Does anyone have any follow up info or a link?

Origins: On 6 January 2007, Knoxville, Tennessee, residents Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, and Channon Christian, 21, went out for a dinner date at a local restaurant, then headed to a friend's house to watch a movie. They never came back. When the couple had failed to return by the following morning, their parents notified police. Christopher Newsom's body was found near some railroad tracks in East Knoxville that afternoon, but Channon Christian remained missing. A trace run on Channon's cell phone helped authorities locate her abandoned vehicle the next day, and fingerprints raised from an envelope inside the automobile led...

The sudden force that the liberal press brought to bear on the falsely accused Duke lacrosse team has been curiously absent on a much more grisly crime committed against a white couple by a group of black youths.Personally, I don't think that local crime issues should ever be covered in the national press but if the media are going to cover them, they need to be consistent. My friend La Shawn Barber has a must-read post on the matter: Early this year, a white couple was carjacked, tortured, raped, and murdered by a group of black thugs. Christopher Newsom (23)...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Bloggers and media critics are complaining that the national media has ignored the rape and murder of a young Knoxville couple because of the racial implications of the story. Channon Christian, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee student, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, were raped, tortured and killed in January. Separate trial dates were set Thursday for four people charged in the slayings. Online critics have angrily insisted that reporters are ignoring the story because the victims are white and the defendants are black. "I am not going to call it reverse racism," said country singer...

The defense in the case of an accused accessory to a fatal carjacking rested its case in U.S. District Court just before noon. Defense attorney Phil Lomonaco sent only two witnesses to the stand, one of whom was a government witness from Monday. The first witness was a carpenter whose sole job was to measure the distance from the Chipman Street house where a Knoxville couple was slain to the parking lot of a nearby business where an employee earlier testified he saw a car linked to Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd soon after the January 2007 fatal carjacking. The second...

A 21-year-old University of Tennessee student was gang-raped, choked and bound in January 2007 before being stuffed inside a trash can while still alive, a federal prosecutor told jurors in opening court statements today. "The evidence will be when she went into that trash can, she was alive," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jennings said this afternoon in U.S. District Court. "Probably, mercifully, Channon Christian died (later that evening)." Jennings revealed details about the killings of Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, as a jury was seated in the trial of Eric Dewayne "E" Boyd. Boyd is charged with helping...

What happened to Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, is almost too horrible to contemplate. The Knoxville, Tenn., couple fell victim to four crazed young criminals during a carjacking. The perpetrators allegedly kidnapped Christian and Newsome and brutally raped both of them before killing them. Newsom was shot, his body burned and dumped beside the railroad tracks. Christian was strangled and left in garbage bags. This heinous crime occurred in January. But it wasn't until recently that the tragedy has been talked about outside of blog posts on the Internet. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case had people...

Consider three criminal cases. No. 1: Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend, Channon Christian, both students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, were carjacked while on a dinner date in January, repeatedly raped (both of them), tortured, and killed. His burned body was found near a railroad track. Hers was stuffed into a trash can. Five suspects have been charged. The crimes were interracial. No. 2: Three white Duke lacrosse players were accused in March 2006 of beating, kicking, choking, and gang-raping an African-American stripper, while pelting her with racial epithets, during a team party. No. 3: Sam Hays bumped...