Casteel Post Conviction
Three days of hearings for Post Conviction is over, now the Judge will spend the next few months looking at all issues. The issues ranged from Ineffective assistance of counsel, misconduct by the prosecutor and new evidence was introduced. The new evidence was a photo of a bullet casing that was found and photographed at the scene where the bodies were found. A blood covered board that was found and recovered where the ATV's were found and a report on some pairs of gloves was found in a tree stump near where the ATV's were found.
The first day started with Frank Casteel on the stand reading all the issues. John Cavett then took the stand. He was Casteel's former attorney in the second trial. After about fifteen questions asked by Casteels attorney about certain testimony that Mr. Cavett claimed he did not remember. The judge then chastised Mr. Cavett for his attitude. The judge told Mr. Cavett he was surprised at his not being prepared.
The second day the defense had John Cavett back on the stand and also put the private investigator that had done his own investigation. He testified about the work he had done on the case.
The last day of testimony consisted of Lee Davis the special prosecutor who took the case for a dollar. The second witness was Jerry Summers a well known Chattanooga Attorney testified about questions he had about the testimony of Kelly Fite a firearms expert.
The third witness was D.A Bill Cox. He took the stand and answered a few questions when he went on a rampage about how he was being accused of Prosecutorial Misconduct.
Part of the reason for the prosecutorial misconduct charge is because he put wittiness’s on the stand he knew was lying. For instance John Lines, even John Cavett who Cox says done a wonderful job in defending Casteel had said on the first day Liens was the least creditable wittiness he had ever faced.
Also Cox talked about how minute inconsistencies did not matter. Well it is not minute when a person says he did not point a gun and then says years later he did point a gun.
Bill Cox got mad at Casteels attorney because she has some nerve accusing him of prosecutorial misconduct. She is not accusing him, her client is accusing him, and Bill Cox showed his true colors on the stand that day.
Then finally you have Larry Sneed. He went on the stand and started answering questions. While he was testifying about how he could not remember a lot of things and he was going on memory. Then he was presented with the pictures of the bullet casing and the board. He automatically had the answer for those pictures. He said the bullet casing was collected but when they saw the wounds and they were shotgun wounds he knew the bullet casing did not matter. The problem with this answer is Kenneth Griffiths Autopsy Report where it states
“The physical characteristics of the entrance and exit wound strongly suggest a single high powered projectile fired from a hunting rifle, military assault rifle or a high powered large caliber handgun." It has never been proven that this wound came from a shotgun."
Sneed also said that the blood on the board was animal blood or paint. If this was true why would he be asking questions about this board to a man in an interview. If this was animal blood why would they want to ask someone about this board?
The main problem with all this is the fact that this stuff had to be found by me. The state had never revealed the fact that a bullet casing was found where the bodies were found. There is no report on this casing or the blood covered board.