Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Not sure if anyone has been following this. They were killed 2 years ago in the Knoxville, TN area. They are 5 defendants in all. One has already been tried and sentenced to 18 years. They started the trial on another one today. Link below goes to live feed. They are out for lunch, will be back around 1pm.

http://www.wbir.com/video/breakingvideo.aspx

This link goes to some background info on the case:

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story...=96153&catid=2

This link goes to the Wikipedia article on it. Living in the area, I can attest it is fairly accurate. It has graphic parts to it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...stopher_Newsom

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Cobbins was convicted of first-degree murder of both Christian, 21, and Newsom, 23, in the January 2007 kidnapping.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Wow, I hadn't heard about this case. Interesting, the comments in Wikipedia about the national media not really covering it.

Horrific! The perps are savage beasts.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

"There is absolutely no proof of a hate crime," said John Gill, special counsel to Knox County District Atty. Randy Nichols. "We know from our investigation that the people charged in this case were friends with white people, socialized with white people, dated white people. So not only is there no evidence of any racial animus, there's evidence to the contrary."

Guess the line, "he can't be a racist he has black friends" ought to work now.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Why is it that when blacks kill whites, it's not a hate crime, but whites killing blacks always is?

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Yeah, thus the reason for my comment.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Helps to show the senselessness of all the "thought crime" laws. I couldn't care less how the convicted murderer felt during the perpetration of the crime.

Did they murder?

Yes or No.

Yes?

Next round, sentencing. And I really don't care how they feel about this either.

But 2007? My heart goes out to the families of the victims.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

I agree hate crime laws are unnecessary and are applied against whites almost exclusively.

How is it any better that I kill you for no reason at all than if I kill you because I don't like your race, religion, or accent?

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Either way, the deceased ends up dead. Now it should be a whodunit; not a "I wonder how they really felt... I wonder about their toilet training..."

Find the bad guys and execute the sentences accordingly.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

When you kill me for no reason at all, it is just you against me. It begins and ends there. But when you kill me because you don't like my race, you set yourself, and potentially your race, against my race. Hate crimes breed hate.

How sad.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Among the other charges, he was found guilty of 1st degree murder of Christian and facilitation of murder of Newsom. The one against Christian is what allows them to pursue the death penalty.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

I agree to a point. What your motivation was is important. For instance did you kill that man yesterday because he was walking on your lawn or because you thought he was a space alien and he was going to explode your heart with his gaze?

How you answer that question and how well you convince a judge or jury determines your punishment.

However, If you killed him because he was white and on your lawn, or just because he was on your lawn it makes no difference because neither is a justification. Hate crimes are ridiculous. If I kill without justification or some mitigating factor the punishment should not be increased or decreased based on some arbitrary determination of how much I hate you or your race.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Can anyone name an incident where a white person killed a black person and there was some doubt that race was not a factor-- but then it was made into a factor with shoddy evidence?


I really can't think of one, but I'm probably biased.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Good point.

(I have trouble answering the "space aliens" questions sometimes so I just stay unarmed).http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com...ons/icon11.gif

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Sadly, you do have a bit of history that may be responsible at least in part for some "bias."

But, there have been many cases where no crime at all took place - (Twana Brawley, the Duke Lacrosse team) when "race" was heralded as the motivation and the accused were smeared and dealt with horribly, only to be later cleared of all charges.

I had a similar personal experience when my kids were younger. We were at a popular park in the city for a picnic. The playground was kind of out of sight from our picnic. A small African-American boy was clumsily playing with a swing and smacked himself in the head with the swing. It stunned him badly enough that he went screaming back to his folks (from a different group of picnickers, all African American) and they rounded up MY KIDS! to hold them until the police arrived.

The complaint? The small African American kid said, "They knocked our heads together...!!!" Since he only had one head on his shoulder, it made no sense. Still a real confrontation was in the making when I was informed of the situation and marched down the hill.

Fortunately, there was a wise old grandpa in the other group who calmed his folks down and got the angry women to back off just as I got there. Otherwise...? Who knows. But you DO NOT take my kids into "custody," certainly not at that age.

And just for a back grounder Jermyn. This is my wife's great uncle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Dahmer (click the link). His nieces and nephews, though "white looking" and very young at the time were surrounded by an angry, shouting group of African Americans and threatened.

It makes no sense.

I think that's why a lot of people are upset about this case too. You know of Twana Brawley and the Duke Lacrosse team. We all heard about it and wondered how it could be true. Turns out, it was all a lie.

Did you even know the names Chris Newsom and Channon Christian until yesterday?

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

I didn't know their names until today. :(

Horrible crimes and I hope the perpetrators are convicted.


However, when speaking about heinous crimes and black people, more often than not black people are the victims of choice for black criminals.



How many young black males die every year at the hands of another black male?

How many of those crimes are brutally carried out, sometimes in public?



Does anyone know the names of any of the victims?



America is sadly a very violent place in many parts of our country.

Even in the most shocking crimes, the victims are hardly remembered and the alleged perpetrators get undue glory for their inglorious acts.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Awesome link about your great Uncle!

It must feel good to have some one in your family to be influential-- whose life affected so many.

You should be proud!


Sorry about his tragic death.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

Statistically, that's a huge point. (The part I bolded above).

Most crimes, even violent ones are "crimes of opportunity." Somebody left a door unlocked. Somebody left the keys in a car. Somebody in the neighborhood was seen pulling out a lot a cash from an ATM. We are robbed by our neighbors, almost exclusively.

Most murder victims are known to their assailants. In fact, that's automatically the first place the cops go. Friends, family and coworkers. And "friends, family and coworkers" tend to be people "like us" (whatever kind of "us" we are) and so it's usually black on black, white on white, Latino on Latino, Asian on Asian.

And that's really unfair to "Asian." That catch-phrase encompasses so many very different ethnicities that you really have to break it down further.

Re: Chris Newsom / Channon Christian Trial
 

I never knew the man. And he's my wife's great uncle. You can kind of tell by his photo that our families have been the sort to "mix" over the generations. My own 10x's great-grandfather started the first inter-racial churches in North America back in the 1600's.

My family was kind of pushed out of the South by the slave aristocracy in colonial and pre-civil war times. They tended to settle with and then follow the Cherokee migrations up until the end of the 1800's.

I'm so "white" (like my mom) that white kids used to make fun of my "ghost legs" in gym class. My dad is so dark that the same kids would ask me if he was "Mexican or something..." Nope, no Latin that I know of anyway. Just "something" (LOL).

At one time I wondered if I was adopted. My brother looks a lot like that actor that starred in in the movie Apocalyptico, same nose, skin color and hair. That is he did until he got his hair "permed" in the 80's. Then he just looked goofy.

My dad seemed to react badly to the questions about race. Privately he seemed to want to show that he was as "white" as Archie Bunker and all. I thought that it kind of hurt his character in a way, the private bitterness. In public though he was always quiet, but respectful and very careful to be polite to everyone. As a kid, it just seemed to me that he wanted to be a bit "more white" for whatever reasons. A culture filled with latent racism probably helped.