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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A woman is trying to get her conviction overturned for the murder of her husband, arguing that her trial was tainted by the judge's addiction to prescription painkillers.
The Knoxville News Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1WFIgpj) reports that attorney Rebecca Legrand, who represents Raynella Dossett Leath, argued that Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner's addiction to drugs caused him to cut short cross-examination of witnesses, shut down questioning of potential jurors and refuse her client a new trial.
An investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation found that Baumgartner was addicted to opiates. The TBI also determined that Baumgartner had convinced a felon on probation in his court to provide him with pills. The probe led to a federal conviction for which Baumgartner served six months.
"He was an addict whose only concern was getting his pills," Legrand said to Senior Judge Paul Summers about Baumgartner on Monday in Knox County Criminal Court.
Baumgartner's last act in office was refusing to grant Leath's motion for a new trial.
Leath was convicted in 2010 in the shooting death of her second husband, David Leath. She was sentenced to life with a mandatory 51-year prison stay.
Leath had also been accused in the 1992 killing of her first husband, Ed Dossett. Charges in that case were later dropped.
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Information from: Knoxville News Sentinel, http://www.knoxnews.com
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