If defense attorneys for former Chickamauga Elementary School teacher Tonya Henke Craft want to tell jurors a potential prosecution witness isn’t credible because she was prohibited from continuing to treat alleged victims after ignoring defense subpoenas, they’ll have to bring in the judge who removed her.
“You can bring (Hamilton County Circuit) Judge (Marie) Williams in here if you want to,” Superior Court Judge Brian House of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit in North Georgia ruled late Monday afternoon. “But (the therapist’s) credibility is a question for the jury, not for some judge in Tennessee.”
The ruling came just one week before the former teacher is scheduled to go on trial in Catoosa County Superior Court next Monday on allegations of sexual abuse that she has vigorously denied.
During Monday’s hearing, Judge House denied most of the 30 pretrial motions made by defense attorneys, including one that asked that a prosecutor in the case be removed for a variety of alleged improper behaviors, including telling Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers and other witnesses to ignore defense subpoenas.
In one case, they said, they were told that investigators had interviewed one child who indicated Ms. Craft did nothing wrong. But when they asked for evidence pertaining to that interview, the sheriff’s department said they had given it to prosecutors – and prosecutors said they didn’t have it.
Further, since Assistant District Attorney Chris Arnt has testified against Ms. Craft during previous proceedings, the defense argued, the prosecutor is a potential witness in the case.
“Your motion is denied,” the judge said. However, he ruled that defense attorneys must be given access to the evidence they previously subpoenaed from the sheriff’s department and other potential witnesses.
Assistant DA Arnt told the judge he did give the sheriff and other witnesses such instructions, because he had told defense attorneys the information they wanted would be provided through the discovery process.
“Instead, all we got was all these subpoenas,” he said angrily.
Judge House, who recently put down a gag order in the case, directed that no signs or T-shirts in favor of one sign or the other be on the courthouse grounds.
Ms. Craft is accused of molesting three young girls. She has given several recent interviews recently in which she staunchly denies the accusations.
The allegations revolve around a slumber party at her home in Catoosa County in the spring of 2008.
Jury selection is set to start on Monday at the Catoosa County Courthouse in Ringgold.