A 63-year-old man who was convicted in 2010 of theft of property and burglary of business has asked for a new trial since 2011 – and he has another week to wait before a Hamilton County judge decides how to handle his odd post-conviction appeal.
After listening to several hours of testimony Wednesday in Criminal Court, Judge Don Poole rescheduled Billy Tate’s post-conviction hearing to May 25, giving his attorney, Brandy Spurgin, a week to hunt down a pretrial transcript that she believes is helpful.
“The issue now is, is there a missing transcript that never made it to the Court of Appeals?” Spurgin asked. “I’m waiting for the court reporter to get back to me.”
Tate’s case stems back to March 30, 2009, when Chattanooga Police detective Michael Early was called to Vaughn Equipment Repair to investigate a weekend break-in. The business owner said a thief had pried away the siding on the building and lifted “tools, Cokes [and] miscellaneous other stuff,” records show. The owner also pointed out a series of footprints in and around the building.
Early requested another investigator from CPD’s crime scene unit to photograph the prints. Then, he ventured over to a “crack house” near the business where he knew “most of the neighborhood thieves hang out,” records show.