Judge grants convicted Monroe County murderer Chris Coleman evidentiary hearing
Chris Coleman, the Monroe County man convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and two sons in 2011, might get the chance at a new trial.
Circuit Court Judge Stephen McGlynn ruled Wednesday that Coleman will receive an evidentiary hearing, one of the first steps in a post conviction petition process, the Republic-Times reported. Coleman, from Columbia, is serving concurrent life sentences in the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for the 2009 murders of his wife, Sheri, and two sons, Garret, 11, and Gavin, 9.
In April 2018, Coleman’s attorney filed a request in the 20th Circuit Court to reconsider Coleman’s conviction, citing four naked pictures of Coleman and his lover, Tara Lintz, that were presented as evidence at the jury trial. According to FOX 2, the back of those photos contained metadata that convinced jurors Coleman was not telling the truth about the timing of his affair, causing them to assume he’d lie about more. Monroe County State’s Attorney Chris Hitzemann filed a motion to dismiss the petition in December.
Coleman’s appeal was moved along just a little further after Wednesday, when Judge McGlynn heard four main arguments as to why Coleman’s petition should be dismissed or not, the Republic-Times report stated. McGlynn decided he needed an evidentiary hearing for the argument concerning the naked photos.
McGlynn said the hearing was necessary to determine if the metadata on the photos, which was not submitted as evidence, got to the jury by accident.
“This is a big case,” he said. “This is serious. We want the community to have confidence the right verdict was reached. We want the community to have confidence that this was a fair trial. And we certainly want the defendant to understand he had a fair trial.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2019 at 8:54 PM.
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