Famous trials in Atlanta history

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Famous trials in Atlanta history

Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial: Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter, pictured April 14, 2015, was at the center of one of the most famous trials in recent Atlanta history. In the trial, 11 Atlanta educators were found guilty of racketeering and other charges for cheating on their students' standardized tests. By cheating, the educators made it appear their students were learning more than they really were. Many of the educators received bonuses for improved scores.

Andrea Sneiderman was initially implicated in the death of her husband, Rusty, outside a Dunwoody daycare in 2010. Her boss, Hemy Neuman, was convicted of murder, and at a subsequent trial she was convicted of lying during the investigation. She was released 10 months into a 5-year prison sentence.

A federal jury convicted former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell in March 2006 of evading taxes in 1997, 1998 and 1999. Jurors acquitted him of racketeering and bribery charges.

Millionaire James Sullivan was spared the death penalty in 2006 and given life in prison without parole for the 1987 murder-for-hire of his wife. Lita McClinton was shot to deathwhen she opened the door of her Buckhead home for a flower deliveryman. She was due to attend a crucial hearing in the couple's acrimonious divorce the same day. The accused hit man, Tony Harwood, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and testified against Sullivan. Sullivan moved to Costa Rica and later Thailand, where he was apprehended in 2002, following a tip from a viewer of "America's Most Wanted."

Brian Nichols was on trial for rape when he escaped and went on a killing spree in the Fulton County courthouse on March 11, 2005. Nichols murdered the judge presiding over his trial, a court reporter, a sheriff's deputy and later a federal agent. He was convicted in November 2008.

Lynn Turner, a former 911 operator, was convicted of killing her husband and boyfriend. Both men died after Turner put antifreeze in their food. In 1995, Turner murdered her husband, Cobb County police officer Maurice Glenn Turner. In 2001 she killed her boyfriend, Forsyth County firefighter Randy Thompson, who she began dating while married. She was convicted of Turner's death in 2004 and Thompson's death in 2007. She was found dead in her prison cell in 2010, the victim of an apparent suicide by drug overdose.

The first African-American sheriff of DeKalb County ordered the December 2000 execution of his successor, Derwin Brown, who had defeated him in a runoff election. In 2002, Dorsey was convicted of ordering Brown's assassination in order to obstruct a probe into corruption at the sheriff's office during Dorsey's tenure. He is serving a life sentence for murder.

After a Buckhead Super Bowl party on January 31, 2000, a fight broke out between NFL star Ray Lewis and his companions and another group of people, resulting in the stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis and two companions, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, were indicted on murder charges. Charges against Lewis were reduced for his testimony against Oakley and Sweeting, who were acquitted of the charges.

Marietta attorney Fred Tokars hired a hitman to kill his wife, Sara. She was shot in 1992 in a car in the presence of their two children. In 1994, real estate developer Eddie Lawrence, who helped find hitman Curtis Rower, pleaded guilty to the killing. In 1997, Tokars, a former prosecutor working as a defense attorney, was convicted of murder. Tokars orderd his wife's killing because he thought she would reveal his millions in overseas bank accounts and connections to Atlanta drug lords.

Atlanta native Wayne Williams was convicted of killing two adults in 1982 but is forever linked to the "Atlanta Child Murders." Williams, 23 at the time of the last murder, was implicated in the deaths of at least 28 African-American children, adolescents and adults between 1979 and 1981. He is serving two life sentences.

Leo Frank, an engineer and director of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, was convicted in 1913 of the murder of one of his factory employees, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. Frank was convicted and sentenced to die by hanging. Georgia Gov. John M. Slaton, a law partner of Frank's defense attorney, commuted Frank's death sentence to life imprisonment, which caused public outrage. Frank was kidnapped from prison by men calling themselves the "Knights of Mary Phagan." Frank was driven near Phagan's former home in Marietta and lynched. The trial drew attention to antisemitism in the U.S. Frank was pardoned in 1986 to "heal old wounds" but Frank was not absolved of the crime.

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Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial: Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter, pictured April 14, 2015, was at the center of one of the most famous trials in recent Atlanta history. In the trial, 11 Atlanta educators were found guilty of racketeering and other charges for cheating on their students' standardized tests. By cheating, the educators made it appear their students were learning more than they really were. Many of the educators received bonuses for improved scores.

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