CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — UPDATE (April 26th):
Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp is responding to allegations related to a man's release on bond and subsequent murder arrest.
A transcript from a March 30th hearing shows a judge agreed to drop the bond from $250-thousand to $25-thousand.
That's after the transcript states the Assistant District Attorney handling the case did not turn over "voluminous" amounts of evidence despite having it in their possession for over a year.
District Attorney Coty Wamp sent a statement, saying her office rejects the allegations. She says they turned over new items of discovery.
Read DA Wamp's full statement below:
"My Office rejects the allegations presented in court on behalf of Mr. Menifee. Significant amounts of discovery was provided to the attorneys representing Mr. Menifee on multiple occasions prior to the court hearing that resulted in the lowering of Mr. Menifee’s bail. While new items of discovery were turned over just prior to the hearing, this is not unique in the criminal justice system. New evidence is always being discovered and forthcoming in criminal cases and this case was no exception.
While Mr. Menifee being released on a murder case due to posting bond and subsequently committing another murder is a unique situation, what happened procedurally in Mr. Menifee’s case is not necessarily abnormal. Defendants request bond reductions all the time and judges grant these bond reductions all the time, unfortunately. While we can and will always work hard to ensure dangerous offenders do not get released from custody, my Office is not responsible for the murderous actions of Mr. Menifee. Blaming the justice system for the behavior of violent criminals, like Mr. Menifee, is misplaced.
This situation represents a larger problem with our State’s bail system. Because there is no mandatory minimum a defendant must pay to a bonding company and because there is no presumptive minimum bail amount for violent crimes, our local bonding agencies require little collateral, often as low as 3%, to be paid for a bond to be made. This is a failure on multiple levels that affects the safety and security of each and every member of our community.
My Office is committed to ensuring that Mr. Menifee is never again a beneficiary of undeserved leniency from a criminal court and we will seek justice for the victims and their families that his conduct has so harshly affected.”
EARLIER (April 25th):
Why did a judge reduce murder suspect Marvin Menifee's bond just two weeks before he was charged in killing a second person? On Tuesday, we uncovered new details that sheds new light on the answer to that question.
Menifee was one of 2 people charged for the October 2021 murder of Alfred Pitmon.
At a hearing last month, a judge reduced Menifee's bond in the case by 90 percent, and Menifee bonded out.
Just two weeks later, Chattanooga Police arrested Menifee and charged him with murder a second time, for the April 14th murder of Deountay Brown on Dodson Avenue.
Pitmon's family told us he never should have been out, and that maybe Brown's life would have been spared.
Read more: Family wants answers: Chattanooga murder suspect released on bond for previous murder case
We've been digging into why a judge granted Menifee's bond reduction, leading to him getting out of jail.
On Tuesday, we uncovered new details from the transcript of a March 30th hearing.
In that transcript, Menifee's then public defender, Vikki Clark, told the judge that the former Assistant District Attorney handling the case failed to turn over a "voluminous" amount of evidence in the 15 months she was prosecuting the case. That lead to a delay in the scheduled trial.
Clark told the judge...
I have literally begged the other D.A... I used the word 'begged' because I had asked for it so many times, and now our clients are the ones who are going to suffer for it.
Records show that ADA AnCharlene Davis was originally prosecuting the case.
Public Defender Clark told the judge
I can't think of a more egregious example of bureaucratic indifference, and bordering on misconduct.... It's so egregious that in 15 years of practicing criminal law, I have never seen something like this.
Another ADA, Austin Scofield, took over the prosecution of the case in January. We've asked the DA's office why he took over, but haven't received a response.
That transcript shows Scofield gave the delayed evidence to the defense "the moment the request was made."
Menifee's original bond was $250,000 but Clark argued that her client shouldn't have to sit in jail on a high bond because of a delay caused by the prosecutor's office.
The judge agreed and said
Your clients have been locked up for a long time waiting for this information, so they will be getting a significant bond reduction.
Judge Boyd Patterson reduced the bond to $25,000. Menifee was able to make that amount, and two weeks later, he was charged in the second murder.
Bill Speek, an attorney that’s not involved in this case, looked over the transcript. He told us...
"What they're saying is it's the fault of the state of Tennessee. So it could it be that police officers or law enforcement hadn't provided in a timely fashion they're collecting evidence, and they're sending evidence off that has to be tested, all of that information takes time.
The transcript also reveals an IT error made it difficult to access all of the evidence. But the defense attorney claimed that would have been discovered much earlier if it had been turned over when Davis was on the case.
We reached out to District Attorney Coty Wamp's office about the claims against Davis, they haven't responded. We also reached out to Davis herself and have not gotten a reply.
According to the Board of Professional Responsibility, they never imposed public discipline or filed formal disciplinary proceedings against attorney Ancharlene Davis. She is still currently a prosecutor with Hamilton County.
And it's important to point that when Menifee's first case started going through the court system, Neal Pinkston was still the district attorney.
Depend on us to keep you posted as we learn more.
