the savage cabbage
2008-10-28 20:18:18 UTC
http://vdare.com/stix/081025_knoxville.htm
Conclusion Of First Knoxville Horror Trial Shows Legal System Under
Stress
By Nicholas Stix
[Previously by Nicholas Stix: The Knoxville Horror: Crime, Race, The
Media, And “Anti-Racism” ]
In the first Knoxville Horror trial in April, Eric Dewayne “E” Boyd
was convicted by a federal jury in Knoxville, Tennessee, of being an
accessory after the fact to carjacking. Recently, on October 15, U.S.
District Judge Tom Varlan sentenced Boyd to 18 years in prison, the
maximum possible sentence, which federal prosecutors had sought.
The carjacking was the first in a chain of crimes, including
kidnapping, assault, theft, multiple forms of gang rape, torture,
murder and corpse desecration committed in Knoxville on January 7,
2007, variously against Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend,
Christopher Newsom, 23, that U.S Attorney James R. Dedrick recently
called “one of, if not the most, horrendous crimes ever committed in
Knoxville, Tennessee.”
The victims were white; Boyd and the four murder defendants are all
black. The authorities and the MSM long insisted that the crime had no
racial motivation. They condemned as “white supremacists” all critics
(including yours truly) who maintained otherwise. In a major
concession in April, however, Knoxville News-Sentinel reporter Jamie
Satterfield, who has covered the case more than any other journalist,
and who previously expressed hostility towards critics suggesting a
racial motivation, wrote neutrally that it “has gained notoriety as a
black-on-white crime.”
Boyd was charged with hiding alleged carjacking ringleader Lemaricus
“Slim” Davidson from the police after the murders. Boyd insisted that
he had had nothing to do with the gang rape-torture-murders, and did
not know of them at the time. He has not been charged in their
commission, or as an accomplice to them.
And yet Judge Varlan still had a huge mess to clean up. It remains to
be seen if he succeeded.
"What Varlan did Wednesday was as bold as it is rare. Federal judges
rarely impose maximum, consecutive sentencing.
He did so unapologetically, citing Boyd’s history as a lifelong
criminal who in 1994 embarked on a violent robbery spree that included
the attempted murder of a witness and, once behind bars, assaults on
other inmates and threats to prison guards.
'Simply put, the defendant shows a lack of regard for the law,' Varlan
said. 'Even when the defendant has been incarcerated for breaking the
law, he has failed to follow the law.' "[Boyd sentenced to maximum
time; He gets 18 years for hiding suspect in couple’s slaying, By
Jamie Satterfield , Knoxville News-Sentinel, October 16, 2008]
In his defense, Boyd argued, “I'm asking for the mercy of the court. I
didn't have to do this, but I did it to make sure this man [Davidson]
didn't hurt nobody else.”
The sentence is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the judge reversed
years of the negligence by the prison system’s stewards, who never
punished Boyd for crimes and misconduct he committed while inside.
On the minus side, Varlan violated the established understanding of co-
operation by a defendant.
Back in 1994, Boyd “admitted” (the term formerly known as “confessed”)
to committing, among other crimes, nine robberies over the course of
two months, in a plea deal which got him a sentence of only 20 years
for the robberies, and dismissal of numerous other crimes, including
attempted murder.
But the family of his white crime partner, Ernest Boyd Collier III,
hired a fancy lawyer, who got him some fancy justice—eight years of
probation, with no time inside. Knox County prosecutors had promised
Boyd that they would offer Collier no less than 20 years.
Boyd had already made an anticipatory charge of racism before making
his deal. He found receptive judges on Tennessee’s Court of Criminal
Appeals, and got himself some fancy justice. By August 2002, he was
paroled. in October 2002, the appeals court nullified the rest of
Boyd’s prison sentence, threw out his convictions and reinstated the
charges against him. He cut a new deal, for ten years, but would not
have done another day, had he not violated parole. That netted him
only another five months, at which point he could not be held any
longer. Boyd had run out the clock.
Boyd’s present attorney, Phil Lomonaco, argued that, since Boyd had
told the authorities where Davidson was hiding, he had provided them
with invaluable assistance, and therefore deserved leniency. Lomanaco
asked for a sentence not to exceed four years. Judge Varlan countered
that Boyd had only helped the authorities because he had already been
caught, and thus deserved no consideration.
Boyd’s professions of altruism and Varlan’s skepticism
notwithstanding, criminals do not help the authorities out of the
goodness of their hearts.
An interagency fugitive task force was able to locate and quickly take
Davidson into custody without a struggle, based solely on Boyd’s
cooperation. A hard case like Boyd would never have cooperated, had he
known that there was no payoff.
The three main ways that criminals get put away are through community
cooperation, aggressive police work, and bad guys “flipping” on each
other.
Lemaricus Davidson was released from prison in August 2006, after
serving a token sentence for a previous carjacking and robbery
conviction. He then allegedly spent the next four months-and-change on
a wave of robberies with Boyd, his alleged crime partner, who
allegedly also committed some stickups with Davidson’s half-brother,
Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins.
Prior to the murders, the black community, perhaps following the
“don’t snitch” rule, was of no help in catching the suspects. And
though Davidson’s white girlfriend, Daphne Sutton, testified at Boyd’s
trial that she knew Davidson was doing stickups, she not only never
alerted the police, but lied to them for hours, hindering their search
for him.
Knoxville police, who were also MIA prior to the discovery of Newsom’s
burned body, were equally worthless, and may have been guilty of de-
policing, out of fear of being called “racist.”
That leaves bad guys betraying each other as the only effective crime-
fighting tool. But if Judge Varlan’s precedent spreads through the
grapevine, that option may dry up, as well.
Judge Varlan repeatedly cited the pre-sentencing report of federal
Probation Officer Myra Melton Buffalo, as justification for the
sentence he meted out to Boyd.
Judge Varlan argued that, since Boyd had confessed to 1994 robberies
that were dismissed, but the federal sentencing guidelines had
insufficiently counted those “criminal history points,” a lenient
sentence would let him off too easily in the instant case, and thus
that he deserved the maximum sentence.
Lomonaco, who said he will appeal, will surely challenge that
argument.
The biggest legal problem with the Boyd trial was its timing. Boyd was
convicted as an accessory to a crime allegedly committed by someone
(Davidson) who has yet to be convicted for said crime. That required
pre-empting the presumption of innocence regarding Davidson. Cart,
horse.
And Davidson is unlikely ever to be tried for the carjacking. He is
scheduled to be tried next June on 47 state charges, including rape
and murder. Presumably, convictions and a death sentence would moot
the federal charges of carjacking.
The scheduled state trials of the other four defendants on rape,
murder, and other charges are: Letalvis Cobbins (January 26, 2009);
Cobbins’ girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman (April 13, 2009); Lemaricus
Davidson (June 22, 2009); and George Geovonni “Detroit” Thomas (August
10, 2009), respectively.
Now Boyd will be more certain than ever that he is a victim of racism.
It's hard out here for a stickup man.
Our legal system was not designed to deal with offenders like Eric
Boyd, with their multitudinous crimes and mitigating circumstances.
The more “diverse” America becomes, the more it will be comprised of
hostile communities who refuse to police themselves, the more police
will be handcuffed, the more common Knoxville-style atrocities will
become—and the more commonly judges will face issues that King Solomon
himself couldn’t see his way through.
Conclusion Of First Knoxville Horror Trial Shows Legal System Under
Stress
By Nicholas Stix
[Previously by Nicholas Stix: The Knoxville Horror: Crime, Race, The
Media, And “Anti-Racism” ]
In the first Knoxville Horror trial in April, Eric Dewayne “E” Boyd
was convicted by a federal jury in Knoxville, Tennessee, of being an
accessory after the fact to carjacking. Recently, on October 15, U.S.
District Judge Tom Varlan sentenced Boyd to 18 years in prison, the
maximum possible sentence, which federal prosecutors had sought.
The carjacking was the first in a chain of crimes, including
kidnapping, assault, theft, multiple forms of gang rape, torture,
murder and corpse desecration committed in Knoxville on January 7,
2007, variously against Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend,
Christopher Newsom, 23, that U.S Attorney James R. Dedrick recently
called “one of, if not the most, horrendous crimes ever committed in
Knoxville, Tennessee.”
The victims were white; Boyd and the four murder defendants are all
black. The authorities and the MSM long insisted that the crime had no
racial motivation. They condemned as “white supremacists” all critics
(including yours truly) who maintained otherwise. In a major
concession in April, however, Knoxville News-Sentinel reporter Jamie
Satterfield, who has covered the case more than any other journalist,
and who previously expressed hostility towards critics suggesting a
racial motivation, wrote neutrally that it “has gained notoriety as a
black-on-white crime.”
Boyd was charged with hiding alleged carjacking ringleader Lemaricus
“Slim” Davidson from the police after the murders. Boyd insisted that
he had had nothing to do with the gang rape-torture-murders, and did
not know of them at the time. He has not been charged in their
commission, or as an accomplice to them.
And yet Judge Varlan still had a huge mess to clean up. It remains to
be seen if he succeeded.
"What Varlan did Wednesday was as bold as it is rare. Federal judges
rarely impose maximum, consecutive sentencing.
He did so unapologetically, citing Boyd’s history as a lifelong
criminal who in 1994 embarked on a violent robbery spree that included
the attempted murder of a witness and, once behind bars, assaults on
other inmates and threats to prison guards.
'Simply put, the defendant shows a lack of regard for the law,' Varlan
said. 'Even when the defendant has been incarcerated for breaking the
law, he has failed to follow the law.' "[Boyd sentenced to maximum
time; He gets 18 years for hiding suspect in couple’s slaying, By
Jamie Satterfield , Knoxville News-Sentinel, October 16, 2008]
In his defense, Boyd argued, “I'm asking for the mercy of the court. I
didn't have to do this, but I did it to make sure this man [Davidson]
didn't hurt nobody else.”
The sentence is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the judge reversed
years of the negligence by the prison system’s stewards, who never
punished Boyd for crimes and misconduct he committed while inside.
On the minus side, Varlan violated the established understanding of co-
operation by a defendant.
Back in 1994, Boyd “admitted” (the term formerly known as “confessed”)
to committing, among other crimes, nine robberies over the course of
two months, in a plea deal which got him a sentence of only 20 years
for the robberies, and dismissal of numerous other crimes, including
attempted murder.
But the family of his white crime partner, Ernest Boyd Collier III,
hired a fancy lawyer, who got him some fancy justice—eight years of
probation, with no time inside. Knox County prosecutors had promised
Boyd that they would offer Collier no less than 20 years.
Boyd had already made an anticipatory charge of racism before making
his deal. He found receptive judges on Tennessee’s Court of Criminal
Appeals, and got himself some fancy justice. By August 2002, he was
paroled. in October 2002, the appeals court nullified the rest of
Boyd’s prison sentence, threw out his convictions and reinstated the
charges against him. He cut a new deal, for ten years, but would not
have done another day, had he not violated parole. That netted him
only another five months, at which point he could not be held any
longer. Boyd had run out the clock.
Boyd’s present attorney, Phil Lomonaco, argued that, since Boyd had
told the authorities where Davidson was hiding, he had provided them
with invaluable assistance, and therefore deserved leniency. Lomanaco
asked for a sentence not to exceed four years. Judge Varlan countered
that Boyd had only helped the authorities because he had already been
caught, and thus deserved no consideration.
Boyd’s professions of altruism and Varlan’s skepticism
notwithstanding, criminals do not help the authorities out of the
goodness of their hearts.
An interagency fugitive task force was able to locate and quickly take
Davidson into custody without a struggle, based solely on Boyd’s
cooperation. A hard case like Boyd would never have cooperated, had he
known that there was no payoff.
The three main ways that criminals get put away are through community
cooperation, aggressive police work, and bad guys “flipping” on each
other.
Lemaricus Davidson was released from prison in August 2006, after
serving a token sentence for a previous carjacking and robbery
conviction. He then allegedly spent the next four months-and-change on
a wave of robberies with Boyd, his alleged crime partner, who
allegedly also committed some stickups with Davidson’s half-brother,
Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins.
Prior to the murders, the black community, perhaps following the
“don’t snitch” rule, was of no help in catching the suspects. And
though Davidson’s white girlfriend, Daphne Sutton, testified at Boyd’s
trial that she knew Davidson was doing stickups, she not only never
alerted the police, but lied to them for hours, hindering their search
for him.
Knoxville police, who were also MIA prior to the discovery of Newsom’s
burned body, were equally worthless, and may have been guilty of de-
policing, out of fear of being called “racist.”
That leaves bad guys betraying each other as the only effective crime-
fighting tool. But if Judge Varlan’s precedent spreads through the
grapevine, that option may dry up, as well.
Judge Varlan repeatedly cited the pre-sentencing report of federal
Probation Officer Myra Melton Buffalo, as justification for the
sentence he meted out to Boyd.
Judge Varlan argued that, since Boyd had confessed to 1994 robberies
that were dismissed, but the federal sentencing guidelines had
insufficiently counted those “criminal history points,” a lenient
sentence would let him off too easily in the instant case, and thus
that he deserved the maximum sentence.
Lomonaco, who said he will appeal, will surely challenge that
argument.
The biggest legal problem with the Boyd trial was its timing. Boyd was
convicted as an accessory to a crime allegedly committed by someone
(Davidson) who has yet to be convicted for said crime. That required
pre-empting the presumption of innocence regarding Davidson. Cart,
horse.
And Davidson is unlikely ever to be tried for the carjacking. He is
scheduled to be tried next June on 47 state charges, including rape
and murder. Presumably, convictions and a death sentence would moot
the federal charges of carjacking.
The scheduled state trials of the other four defendants on rape,
murder, and other charges are: Letalvis Cobbins (January 26, 2009);
Cobbins’ girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman (April 13, 2009); Lemaricus
Davidson (June 22, 2009); and George Geovonni “Detroit” Thomas (August
10, 2009), respectively.
Now Boyd will be more certain than ever that he is a victim of racism.
It's hard out here for a stickup man.
Our legal system was not designed to deal with offenders like Eric
Boyd, with their multitudinous crimes and mitigating circumstances.
The more “diverse” America becomes, the more it will be comprised of
hostile communities who refuse to police themselves, the more police
will be handcuffed, the more common Knoxville-style atrocities will
become—and the more commonly judges will face issues that King Solomon
himself couldn’t see his way through.