knoxville sentencing update

[Kaptain]

If being found guilty of double first degree pre-mediated murder combined with gang anal and oral rape, body mutilation, and torture is not enough to warrant the death penatly than what is? 2 of the 5 knoxville murderers have now been found guilty, but have escaped the death penalty. Though the knoxville area is 70% white, the jury had only one white male and 2 white females on it. BTW, as it turns out all the horror stories about the fashion these two were killed with turned out the to be true. Remember how our mainstream media told us that the brutality of these murders were a senational lie put out by white supremacists websites? Looks like the white supremacists were once again correct. No surprise.


I know we've had a knoxville thread but I couldn't find it by using a site search.

Article:

Victims' families disappointed in jury's decision on Cobbin fate
The families of the young Knoxville couple who were carjacked, raped, tortured and murdered had some strong words at Wednesday evening's sentencing.
Posted: 3:03 AM Aug 27, 2009
Reporter: Nick Bona
Email Address: nick.bona@wvlt-tv.com

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Victims' Families Disappointed in Jury's Cobbins Verdict


Story 0 Comments Font Size:KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) â€" The families of the young Knoxville couple who were carjacked, raped, tortured and murdered had some strong words at Wednesday evening's sentencing.

Jurors deliberated less than three hours before returning to the courtroom with a unanimous decision on the fate of Letalvis Cobbins, 26. The day before they had convicted him on 33 of the 38 charges he faced in the deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Two of those charges, premeditated murder and felony murder against Christian carried the death penalty.

Jurors spent several hours on Wednesday listening to victim impact statements from the Christian family as well as the pleas of the Cobbins family to save the convicted murderer's life.

The jury foreman delivered the decision of the 12 member jury at just after 6:45 p.m.

"We the jury find such aggravated circumstances do not outweigh any mitigating circumstances, beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, we the jury unanimously agree that the defendant will be sentenced to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole."

Upon hearing the verdict, Cobbins took a deep breath and then sat down.

His defense attorneys saved their client's life, but they didn't openly rejoice. They admitted the case was difficult and even told the jury that Cobbins was someone they should hate.

"The hardest thing about this case, all the way through, has been the pain and the anguish on the faces of the people who show up for court everyday,"Â￾ said Scott Green, Cobbins' lead defense attorney. "I think everybody needs to remember them in their prayers. We're relieved, obviously, about the outcome, but a lot of work is left to do."

Knox County prosecutors declined to comment about the outcome of the verdict, explaining that they will not be able to talk about the Cobbins trial until the other three trials related to the murders are complete.

Outside the courtroom, the parents both victims were noticeably upset over the jury's decision. Both couples agreed it was the jurors and not the prosecution that disappointed them.

"They took our daughter, they raped her, they murdered her and they tortured her. They didn't just kill her," said Gary Christian, Channon's father. "If there's ever a case in this state that deserved the death penalty"¦ What were they thinking?"

"They let us down," said Mary Newsom, Chris' mother. "I feel like we let Chris down. We told Chris we'd get them all."

Cobbins was the first of four suspects on trial for the murders of the young couple. The others include Cobbins' brother and accused ring leader Lemaricus Davidson, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman. A fifth man, Eric Boyd is serving prison time after having already been convicted in federal court of being an accessory to the January 2007 murders.

"This is what she's supposed to look like and they took that away from me,"Â￾ said Deena Christian holding a picture of her daughter Channon. "They took that away from her brother. They took Chris away from the Newsom's and they deserve to die for it, all five of them."

Both families have toured a state prison and believe they aren't harsh enough for Cobbins.

"It's a God dang girls' school," said Gary. "It ain't a place for normal people, but for that bunch, he just got a lifetime hotel sentence."

"He's going to increase his standard of living by least a factor of 100," said Hugh Newsom, Chris' father.
Earlier in the day, some of Cobbins' family members appeared before the jurors to beg the convicted murder's life.

"I am asking you to please have mercy on him,"Â￾ said Lakisha Young, Cobbins' cousin. "Please, I know what he did was wrong, but I love him no less."

"'Talvis' would give you his last if he had it,"Â￾ said Theresa Hullum, another of Cobbins' cousins. "He is a wonderful person."Â￾

Cobbins' own sister made a statement about his background. She told jurors his mom was a prostitute and addict who allegedly forced him to deal drugs to support her habit.

"I am so sorry to the family that this has happened,"Â￾ said Misha Davidson, Cobbins' sister. "I can not imagine their pain. You may look at me and hate me for what happened, but I love my brother and I know that you all may want him to die because of what happened.

A psychiatrist also testified, explaining he moved around between Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville and Kentucky. During that time he lived with his mother, father, brother Lemaricus and sometimes on the street or in homeless shelters.

"I think they fell for it,"Â￾ said Mary Newsom after the sentence was handed down.

Cobbins' three sisters and two cousins who made statements in the morning didn't stick around to hear the verdict.

"That's how much they're going to take care of their brother in prison," said Deena Christian. "They left the minute they got through with their little sob story. They haven't seen him in eight years and they won't see him again. They got paid to come down here I'm sure. They have a little family photo and off they go back to Memphis or where ever they're from,"

The Christian and Newsom families both agree their children didn't get the justice they deserved. They do believe however that the Knoxville community may have.

"This satisfies me in one way,"Â￾ said Gary Christian outside of the courthouse. "Your kids, your kids and your kids aren't going to get raped and tortured by Letalvis Cobbins."

Cobbins still faces sentencing on the 31 remaining charges he was found guilty of that didn't carry a maximum penalty of the death penalty. Judge Richard Baumgartner will sentence him on those charges on November 20th, 2009 at 1:00 p.m

 

[Colonel_Reb]

What an absolute crock, but with a mostly negro jury, I would expect nothing more. The joke that makes up the U.S. justice system is an abomination to our society. If we still had some vigilante justice, you wouldn't see any of these kinds of gruesome hate killings going on. The negroes would be too scared to do anything. They don't fear the so-called "justice system" because they know its a joke.

 

[sport historian]

I am something of a true crime junkie and have followed this case closely. There were 5 white jurors on the final panel, not 3, with 6 blacks and 1 Asian. The jury was selected and bussed to Knoxville from Nashville. The jury obviously bought the sob story from the defendant's female relatives, who had not seen him in years and will never see him again. The white jurors may well have been no more willing to apply the death penalty than the black ones.

This is a trial where the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to life without parole, yet there is enormous anger. The reason is the agonizing torture that Channon Christian and Chris Newsom suffered. If they had been shot dead in the parking lot and died quickly, there would not have been so much anger about the sentence.

There is an upside. A death penalty verdict may well have been reversed on appeal. Appellate judges would have been looking to do so. A life without parole verdict is unlikely to be appealed. A week ago, I would have taken life without parole as the defense attorney was much better than the two prosecutors. Considering the jury, it is fortunate that an LWOP verdict was attained.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Thanks for the info, sport historian. You are right about the white jurors possibly leaning away from the death penalty. Historically, blacks have been against the death penalty more than whites. You made some good points about the verdict, some things I haven't thought about.

 

[whiteathlete33]

Sporthistorian you are correct about the appeal. They probably would have gotten a reversal anyway. Death penalties takes years before they happen anyway.

 

[guest301]

All these crime based TV talk shows like the one Nancy Grace has, should have been carrying wall to wall coverage of this crime and trial. If the victims had been black, I'm sure she would have.

 

[sport historian]

Thanks for the comments. Cobbins took the stand against the strong advice of counsel and lied. I am certain that Cobbins thought the black jurors would vote not guilty on Channon's murder if he denied it on the stand. At least, this didn't work.

An LWOP sentence is worse than Cobbins thought he would get.

 

[Kaptain]

There were 5 white jurors on the final panel, not 3, with 6 blacks and 1 Asian.

Not quite. One juror was hispanic. The primary jury did have only three whites but upon dileberations one black woman dismissed herself and she was replaced by a white. So final count, four white jurors, 4 black women, 2 black men, an hispanic, and an asian. Like a McDonald's commercial. Group dynamics being what it is I am not surprised that they came back with no death penalty.

 

[sport historian]

My information is the jury was 6 (originally 7) blacks, 5 (originally 4) whites, and one Asian. My instinct is that at least some of the white jurors from Nashville were unwilling to vote death. Of the 3 available verdicts, death, life without parole, and life with parole, they compromised on LWOP, and went back to Nashville.

I repeat that Cobbins didn't think he would get this stiff a sentence. You can blame the judge for picking Nashville as the location for the jury panel. See Nicholas Stix's latest Vdare blog post.