Judge resets trial date to April for 19-year-old accused in 2015 quadruple shooting

Cortez Sims
Cortez Sims

A judge today reset the September trial of a 19-year-old accused of murder to April 2017, despite prosecutors arguing that a significant delay would harm the state's case by putting witnesses at risk.

Judge Barry Steelman agreed Cortez Sims will stand trial April 4 and that attorneys won't meet again until Nov. 22 to address a number of outstanding motions, records show.

Prosecutor Lance Pope declined to comment afterwards.

Police say Sims, then 17, burst into a College Hill Courts on Jan. 7, 2015, and went on a shooting rampage, killing one, injuring two, and paralyzing a then one-year-old girl.

For months, attorneys worked to meet their original Sept. 27 trial date in Hamilton County Criminal Court. But on Aug. 8, Sims said he wanted to fire his attorney, Brandy Spurgin-Floyd.

He had filed an official complaint with a state board, forcing Spurgin-Floyd to request to withdraw, too.

Steelman didn't grant the 19-year-old's request for a new lawyer until earlier this month, saying he never found any issues with Spurgin-Floyd's representation and that Sims failed to outline any reasonable, specific complaints.

During one hearing, Sims complained that Spurgin-Floyd never moved to suppress the identification that one of the state's witnesses, Marcell Christopher, made at College Hill Courts in a puddle of his blood.

Police said Christopher, 18 at the time, was captured on a body camera saying "Cortez...Cortez Sims." Another state witness, Bianca Horton, survived that shooting but was found dead in late May in the 2100 block of Elder Street.

During one hearing, prosecutor Pope said a significant trial delay would put further pressure on surviving witnesses.

He said Horton was murdered, that Christopher, a validated gang member, was pressured into not testifying, and that a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent was starting maternity leave in December and would return until around March 2017.

"Judge, we're not talking about passing the case for 60 days," Pope said during a hearing in late August. "We're talking about passing case for five to six months. And that would prejudice the state's case."

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