A Polk County, Tenn., man charged in an August 2012 triple slaying won’t face the death penalty after scheduling problems in the 10th Judicial District Attorney’s Office led to the withdrawal last week of the death penalty notice.
Circuit Court Judge Sandra Donaghy on Nov. 18, 2015, ordered the district attorney’s office to show cause “why the assigned attorneys should not be held in contempt of court for failing to respond to pleadings” proscribed in the court’s scheduling order for the death penalty case, court records show.
George Steven Waters, 33 when charged, faces three counts of first-degree murder in the Aug. 17, 2012, slayings of his aunt, uncle and cousin – respectively, 59-year-old Wanda Waters, 61-year-old Willard Waters and their 40-year-old son, Marion Doug Waters – in a property dispute. Wanda and Doug Waters were shot dead at the scene on George Road in the Grassy Creek community. Willard Waters died later at a hospital, authorities told the Times Free Press in 2012.
Court records show Waters was indicted Jan. 7, 2013, in connection with the slayings and the state filed a death penalty notice in the case on Nov. 3, 2014. A death penalty notice triggers a strict court schedule and the enforcement of special procedures that come into play when a criminal defendant’s life is at stake.
On May 19, 2015, Donaghy issued a detailed scheduling order that required attorneys on both sides of the case to file pleadings or motions by July 11, 2015, for a hearing set Oct. 11, 2015. The defense responded in a timely manner to all 23 pleadings in the case, but the state filed pleadings 1-15 in a timely manner then failed to respond on pleadings 16-23 and made no request for an extension, Donaghy states.