Defendants Want Web Comments Scrubbed

By: A judge overseeing the death-penalty trials of four defendants in the torture-slaying of a young Knoxville couple was asked Friday to tame inflammatory public comments on local media Web sites.

"Just what power do you think I have?" Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner asked the attorneys representing three men and a woman charged in the 2007 deaths of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom.

Attorney Scott Green said action was needed to ensure a fair trial for his client Letalvis Cobbins and a jury pool untainted by inflammatory postings by anonymous writers.

Censorship requested

The defendants are being tried separately. Cobbins will be the first in July.

"The right to a fair trial and a right to a public trial are not coequal," Green said.

Green, joined by attorneys for the three other defendants, urged Baumgartner to force The Knoxville News Sentinel and WBIR-TV to censor comments posted on their Web sites or at least require the writers to identify themselves.

Attorneys Rick Hollow and Tom McAdams, representing the newspaper and TV station, respectively, countered that would violate the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.

McAdams also noted that anonymous criticism has a rich history in the United States, pointing to documents such as the Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay under the name "Publius" in the 1780s to persuade New York voters to ratify the proposed Constitution.

The judge didn't say when he will rule, but indicated some sympathy with the idea that the media has a responsibility to monitor what appears on their advertiser-supported Web sites.

The media attorneys contended the sites offer a kind of community bulletin board on topical issues. Comments are removed automatically if enough readers click a command on the page. The media hosts should not be required to be "hall monitors," they argued.

Green's objections weren't over comments aimed at their clients, but themselves ? the defense lawyers.

Attorneys targeted

One called a defense attorney a "scum-sucking lawyer." Another said, "I could never live with myself if I were a public defender."

A third questioned how such a lawyer could "live long enough to walk to your car. A good snyper (sic) would do the job quickly, quietly and painlessly."

Prosecutors said they were prepared to act if the comments were genuine threats.