Murder Case Threatens Anonymity for Website Comments

This is just ridiculous. Two beautiful people were raped, tortured and slaughtered by a group of scum and this is what the issue devolves into?

A judge in one of the nation's most brutal carjacking and murder cases has openly questioned in court whether news websites – such as those covering his trial – should be permitted to allow open and anonymous "comments" sections at the bottom of Internet-posted stories.

"I'm saying if there is a profit, there is a responsibility that goes with it," said Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner of Knox County, Tenn., to an attorney for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

"This is not the Internet. This is a site created by you in which you invite comments," the judge stated. "This is something you control."

Richard Hollow, the newspaper's attorney, argued that a court-imposed policy on the "comments" sections would be an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment free speech rights.

"What the court is asking us to do is … set up a board of censorship," Hollow said.

The legal wrangling is part of the trial of five suspects charged in the January 2007 carjacking, rape and murder of Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, in Knoxville, Tenn.

As WND reported, five defendants face nearly 50 counts of kidnapping, robbery, gang-rape, murder and theft charges after Christian and Newsom were abducted, assaulted and tortured repeatedly over a period – probably of days – before being shot and killed.

Details in the aftermath of the slayings were not widely released, leading to a flurry of speculation – much of it unfounded – on the grisly details of the crime.

Internet "comment" sections also became a hotbed of discussion with particularly racial themes, as the victims were white and alleged perpetrators black.

Right. The "alleged" perpetrators were black. Which is the only reason in the world this website anonymity has become an issue. In case anyone has forgot, here's more on what actually happened to these people.

According to news reports, Christian and Newsom had gone on a date at a local restaurant on Saturday, January 6, 2007, but did not return home. During their night out, the couple was "hijacked, bound and blindfolded and taken back to Lemaricus Devall 'Slim' Davidson's rented house on Chipman Street."

Christian's parents found her abandoned Toyota 4-Runner two blocks away from the Chipman Street house the following Monday with the help of her mobile phone provider. An envelope recovered from the vehicle yielded fingerprint evidence that led police to Lemaricus Davidson and 2316 Chipman Street. When police went to the address on Tuesday, January 9, they found the home unoccupied and Christian's body in a trash can in the kitchen.

According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner at the subsequent trial of Eric Boyd, Newsom was repeatedly raped and then blindfolded, gagged, arms and feet bound and his head covered. Barefoot, he was either led or dragged outside the house to a set of nearby railroad tracks. He was shot in the back of the head, the neck, and the back, and his body then set on fire. Christian's death would come only after hours of sexual torture, medical examiner Mileusnic-Polchan testified. Christian suffered horrific injuries to her vagina, anus and mouth. She was not only raped but savaged with "an object," possibly a broken chair leg, the doctor testified. She was beaten in the head. Some type of chemical was poured down her throat, and her body, including her bleeding and battered genital area, likely scrubbed with the same solution - all while Christian was alive, the forensic expert said. She was then "hog-tied," with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered tightly with a small trash bag and her body stashed inside five large trash bags before being placed inside a large trash can and covered with sheets. Christian died slowly, suffocating, the medical examiner said.

These fucking animals commit what is one of the worst crimes I've ever read about and all our judicial system can worry about is making sure no one makes any racist comments about the murders? Has this country lost its damn mind? Wait, don't answer that. Of course we have.