Cell Phone Data Helps Grant New Trial for Knoxville Man - Articles

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Cell Phone Data Helps Grant New Trial for Knoxville Man

Posted by: Julia Wilburn on May 27, 2025

Knox County Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword on May 21 dismissed the attempted murder convictions against Ahmad Gatlin, who had been sentenced to 31 years in prison when he was a teenager. Now 20, Gatlin will be granted a new trial due to recently discovered cell phone data that corroborates his claim that he was across town when the crime was committed. Knox News reports that Gatlin was convicted in 2023 after police and prosecutors argued he was in a car when shots were fired into another car near Austin-East Magnet High School in 2021. Knoxville defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson helped Gatlin's defense team with the challenge and says he is now formally joining the team to represent Gatlin pro bono should the state seek a new trial. According to WBIR, law students from the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law also joined the defense team. Director of Clinical Programs and Associate Professor of Law Joy Radice said, “Lawyers representing the poor whose life or liberty are at stake in a criminal case are overworked, chronically underfunded, and often unable to research and obtain critical and effective expert assistance to meet the awesome power of the state or federal government. I am honored that the [clinic] could be a part of helping to fill that gap in Ahmad’s case, as [it] has for over 75 years for so many others."

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