Coleman jury search begins
Panel for slayings trial to be culled from Davidson County
By Jamie Satterfield
Posted April 9, 2010 at midnight
A Knox County judge is taking a second dip into a Davidson County jury pool for a panel to determine the fate of the final defendant facing trial in the torture-slayings of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom.
Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner today is in Nashville, where he will pass out a lengthy questionnaire to residents summoned specially for service as potential jurors in the upcoming trial of Vanessa Coleman, 22.
Coleman faces trial in May in the January 2007 kidnapping, rape and slaying of Christian, 21, and Newsom, 23.
Coleman's boyfriend, convicted killer Letalvis Cobbins, 27, also was tried by a Davidson County jury last year. The outcome of his trial makes Baumgartner's decision to return there in Coleman's case a controversial one for relatives of the slain couple.
In Cobbins' case, jurors spared him the death penalty and acquitted him of a direct role in Newsom's rape and death, instead deeming him guilty of lesser facilitation charges. But whether that decision reflects a liberal-leaning jury pool or merely an effective defense strategy is unknown. The judge has kept the names of those jurors under wraps so they haven't been interviewed.
By contrast, a Hamilton County jury found Cobbins' pal, George Thomas, 27, guilty in both deaths, although, like Cobbins, prosecutors had no forensic or ballistic link between Thomas and Newsom's killing. Both Cobbins and Thomas conceded they were in the Chipman Street house while Christian was being held hostage, beaten, tortured, raped and stuffed inside a trash can to die. But both denied being present at nearby railroad tracks where Newsom was executed and his body set on fire. Thomas was, however, spared the death penalty by the Hamilton County panel.
Ringleader Lemaricus Davidson, Cobbins' 28-year-old brother, opted for a Knox County jury. That panel not only deemed him guilty but ordered him to die as punishment. He, however, took an entirely different defense strategy, claiming Christian and Newsom voluntarily came to his home to buy drugs. He blamed the rapes and killings on Cobbins and Thomas.
Following today's introduction of the case to potential jurors in Davidson County, the judge, Coleman, defense attorneys and prosecutors will return there April 27 to put each potential panelist under individual questioning. That process is expected to last three days. On the fourth day, all those who pass muster will then face group questioning as a final panel of 12 jurors and four alternates is chosen.
The final jury will be transported to Knoxville on the eve of Coleman's May 10 trial and housed in a local hotel throughout it.
Full article can be seen at this link:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/apr/09/coleman-jury-search-begins/