A Knox County widow facing a retrial in the 2003 killing of her husband is free on bond.
Raynella Dossett Leath, 67, posted $50,000 bond on Tuesday after an agreed court order was filed this week in Knox County Criminal Court.
Dossett Leath has won a chance at a new trial after a judge ordered her 2010 Knox County murder conviction overturned. Dossett Leath has been in prison since the conviction.
Last month, Senior Judge Paul Summers agreed to toss the conviction against Dossett Leath, citing then Judge Richard Baumgartner's drugged state at trial.
Summers ruled Baumgartner was unable to properly evaluate prior testimony, weigh evidence or “fairly make a determination to fulfill his role as thirteenth juror.”
Dossett Leath claimed at trial that her husband David had committed suicide with a gun.
The prosecution is appealing Summers' decision, seeking to preserve Dossett Leath's conviction. She was being held in Knox County's custody when the court agreed to set her appearance bond at $50,000, giving her a chance to go free pending further prosecution.
The defense and prosecutors had agreed on $50,000 as an appropriate bond amount, documents show. A June 9 hearing had been previously set but will not take place now.
Leath was also accused in the 1992 death of her first husband, Knox County District Attorney General Ed Dossett. An initial investigation found he died after being trampled by cattle on his Solway area farm, but investigators later determined he may have been drugged and the death staged.
She was charged in Dossett's death, but the charges were dropped after she was convicted in David Leath's death.
She stood trial twice for David Leath's death. The first ended in a hung jury.
Her new trial is tentatively set for January 2017.
