Month: November 2016

UPDATE:
Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said she had no knowledge of any payment made to a witness as she prosecuted Andrew Thomas.

Weirch issued the statement below on Wednesday afternoon. Her office also issued a timeline of events in the Thomas case (at the bottom of this post).

Here’s what Weirich said about the payment:

“The case file I received from the federal government had no record or mention of such a payment,” Weirich said. “The first I heard of this payment was after the 2011 federal proceeding, 10 years after our prosecution of Thomas in criminal court.

“Finally, let’s all remember that the person being forgotten in all of this discussion of convicted defendant Andrew Thomas is the victim, James Day, who suffered for two years before dying of his injuries.”

ORIGINAL POST:
Shelby County District Attorney General (SCDAG) Amy Weirich had no knowledge of or involvement with a secret payment made to a key witness in a murder trial that’s now under federal review, according to Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery.

Slatery’s statement came Wednesday in a letter to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court that is now hearing arguments in the case of Andrew Thomas. Thomas was convicted in 2001 of the 1997 shooting death of James Day, an armored truck driver.

Thomas’ attorneys discovered that law enforcement agents paid a witness, Angela Jackson, $750 for her statement during the federal trial of the case. That case preceded the murder trial in Memphis, of which Weirich was the lead prosecutor.

Weirich did not disclose the fact that Jackson had been paid to Thomas’ attorneys or to jury members during the trial. Thomas’ attorney are arguing to the appeals court, that if the jury did know about the payment, it may have changed their view of the witness statement and, perhaps, changed the outcome of the trial altogether.

But Slatery’s statement Wednesday said Weirich could not have turned over the evidence because she simply didn’t know about it.

Here’s Slatery’s letter in full:

“The $750 payment to Ms. Jackson was made by the federal government without the knowledge of or involvement by District Attorney General Amy Weirich.

“The payment to Ms. Jackson was made three years prior to the state’s successful prosecution of Mr. Thomas for the murder of James Day. There has been no finding whatsoever that state prosecutors in this case had actual knowledge of the payment at the time of the state trial.

“The briefs in the case describe knowledge that may be imputed to a prosecuting office under a legal concept, but that is a far, far cry from actually knowing of or concealing a payment like this.

“Prosecuting these cases is never easy; our office will continue to confidently work with General Weirich and her office.”

Thomas now sits on death row but has maintained his innocence through the years. He has appealed his case through the Tennessee Supreme Court and to a lower-level federal court, though all of his appeals have, so far, been denied.

The review by the federal appeals court began in Memphis last week.

Here’s the timeline of events in the case, according to Weirich’s office:

April 21, 1997 – Armored truck driver James Day was shot in the head and robbed.
Nov. 13, 1998 – Andrew Thomas is convicted in federal court of robbery and use of a gun.
Dec. 18, 1998 – Angela Jackson is given $750 by Deputy U.S. Marshall Scott Sanders with approval of FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Arvin.
Oct. 2, 1999 – James Day dies of complications from the shooting.
Mar. 21, 2000 – Shelby County Grand Jury indicts Thomas for the murder of James Day
Sept. 25, 2001 – Thomas is convicted of felony murder in state court. Sentenced to death.
Oct. 12-13, 2011 – In a hearing in federal court, Deputy U.S. Marshall Sanders acknowledges $750 payment.

Each week, the Flyer will feature adoptable dogs and cats from Memphis Animal Services. All photos are credited to Memphis Pets Alive. More pictures can be found on the Memphis Pets Alive Facebook page.

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The conviction of a Knoxville-area man who secretly filmed his 12-year-old daughter and her friend while they were nude, has been reversed and dismissed by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

In a unanimous opinion, justices said Monday the conviction for especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor could not stand because the videos only showed the girls naked. Current state law requires a conviction on the charge only if such videos show victims engaged in sexual activity. The court concluded that the videos did now show the victim engaged in sexual activity.

Thomas Whited was convicted in 2013 by a Knox County jury on nine counts of especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of attempt to commit that offense, 13 counts of observation without consent, and one count of attempt to commit that offense.

So, Whited will still be held on the other 15 convictions against him that remain. The Supreme Court sent the case back to atrial court for re-sentencing.

Whited’s wife found hidden-camera cell phone videos on his phone that showed their daughter entering and exiting the shower. Other videos on his phone showed the Whiteds’ daughter and her 14-year-old friend changing out of swimsuits. All of the videos were taken at the Whiteds’ home.

State law says the material must “be evaluated based on what is depicted, without reference to the defendant’s subjective intent.” The court determined that, regardless of Whited’s intent in making the videos, the content depicted nudity alone, and not a minor engaged in sexual activity.

“[W]e must hold that the videos at issue do not rise to a level at which the trier of fact could reasonably find that they include ‘sexual activity,’ defined as the ‘lascivious exhibition’ of the minor’s private body areas,” Justice Holly Kirby wrote in Monday’s opinion.

The court said the state can retry Whited on the lesser charge of attempt of the offense of especially aggravated sexual exploitation. Also, justices said the evidence would have supported a conviction for photography without consent.

Citizens and media in Memphis are feverishly working to identify the Trump supporter whose ultra-racist tangent was caught on film and subsequently ricocheted all throughout the internet.

So far, we only know for certain the one man who is NOT responsible for the abhorrent spew, and that man is Brad Carson, producer for ESPN 92.9.

An unknown person for unknown reasons falsely tagged Carson in the viral video, and almost immediately the sports-show producer began receiving death threats via email and social media.

Twitter

This isn’t the first time an individual has outed themselves to the world at large as a racist, rancid, festering boil upon the dermis of humanity. It likely won’t be the last. But, with searching tools more available than ever, false accusations are now easier than ever to spread.

Just ask Brad Carson.

Brandon Lev, the recpient of the foul spew and quite possibly one of the most patient humans on earth, has been the only one to identify themselves and come forward about what happened. That’s somewhat surprising as the unidentified boil seems awfully proud of sharing his views.

Carry on, Internet- but do so with caution.

Official Facebook bio photos for Trump, Clinton

Trump appealed to the heart. Clinton appealed to the head.

That’s one key takeaway from the final presidential debate, according to a group of University of Memphis (U of M) researchers who watch political speeches the way pro coaches watch game film.

Languages Across Cultures at the U of M works through the school’s Institute for Intelligent Systems to unravel political speech in Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, and English using computer language tools.

The group focuses on political crises, distinctions between credible threats and bluffs in national and international security, and contentious political behavior.

This year, the group followed the three televised debates between 2016 Presidential hopefuls, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. They found, among other things, that Clinton’s language tended to be more “information dense,” while Trump’s language tended to be more emotional.

The group published all of its findings on the Language Across Cultures blog. Leah Windsor, the principal investigator with the project, said, of course, that her group is nonpartisan and focused solely on the speech itself.

Here are some of the findings from the group’s research:

• Trump used more negative emotion.

• Clinton used more positive emotion.

• In the first debate, Clinton used more nonfluencies (words like well, um, err. mmmm, uh) than Trump did. Men usually use these “fillers” more than women do, because it is a tactic to “hold the floor” and retain their speaking turn, rather than yield to others in the conversation.

Given that Trump interrupted Clinton upwards of 50 times, she likely adopted this tactic so she could make her speaking points. Our analysis validates this assertion, because she also used more masculine language than did Trump.

• In persuading voters, Clinton goes the central route, to their heads.

• In persuading voters, Trump goes the peripheral route, to their hearts.

• In the first and second debates, Clinton used more tentative language (rather than certain) than Trump did.

Speaking in absolutes could make negotiations difficult, limiting the ability to compromise.