By David in TN
Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 7:37:00 P.M. EST
Here is the Knoxville News Sentinel story on Monday's session by Matt Lakin.
Our ex-friend Jamie "I am the Queen of Crime Writing" Satterfield was covering another trial.
"Monday marked the start of hearings set to last through much of the week as lawyers for Lemaricus Davidson seek to convince Senior judge Walter Kurtz that Davidson's 2009 trial was flawed and that the jury's verdict should be thrown out."
We were told at the time that since the defense insisted on a Knox County jury, they couldn't later appeal on the issue of getting an outside jury. Well, they are appealing on "change of venue jury," anyway.
From Monday's testimony: Davidson and his lawyers believed it would be impossible to get an "impartial" jury from the Knox County pool. Defense attorney Doug Trant testified "I told Lemaricus if we got a jury from Mars, and if they believed what the prosecutors said he did, they would give him the death penalty."
[N.S.: Didn’t Doug Trant just contradict the basis for a "change of venue jury"?]
The defense hoped it would be impossible to "find a dozen impartial jurors in Knox County - and secretly hoped not to, Trant suggested."
"I told (Davidson) if we were not able to seat a jury, he could not be convicted," Trant testified.
Davidson's lawyers hoped jury selection would be "interminable." The prosecution would be forced to offer Davidson a plea deal on a reduced charge. Then Knox County District Attorney General offered Davidson a guilty plea to “Life Without Parole," taking the death penalty off the table.
Davidson supposedly said he preferred death to life in prison.
After the trial ended up with a guilty verdict and death sentence, Davidson had "regrets."
"I remember when he got the death sentence, he cried," Trant said. "He said it was one thing to anticipate a death sentence and another to actually get it."
Surprise, surprise.
Trant also testified it was common knowledge among the Knox County legal community that the late Judge Richard Baumgartner was a heavy drug user.
Tuesday's session was more of the same.
The other defense attorney, David Eldridge, claimed the victim's families "helped fuel a mob atmosphere by being visibly emotional during the trial."
Although Jamie wasn't present, during the day she tweeted: "I wouldn't worry too much about this phase of Davidson's appeal. Post conviction appeals are rarely successful."
N.S.: Considering how untrustworthy Jamie has proved herself to be, that tweet gives me little solace.
By Jerry PDX
Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 2:01:00 P.M. EST
One has to wonder how a lawyer could make the claim that the Knoxville horror case has gotten "too much publicity" with a straight face. How anybody could not feel their intelligence is being insulted by something so absurd?
Go out on the street right now and ask anybody, who does not live in the geographic region where the crime occurred if they know the names
“Channon Christian” and “Christopher Newsom”? Guarantee 99% will not know them. But 99% will know that the Covington kids are a bunch of racist punks. The Media have made sure of that.
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1 comment:
"I wouldn't worry too much about this phase of Davidson's appeal. Post conviction appeals are rarely successful."
Exactly. Do not be so sure. You get a sympathetic judge and a clever lawyer and a sympathetic jury and you can more or less argue anything and win. Law be damned.
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