KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The mental health of a Maryville man is the focus of a Knoxville murder trial this week -- for the second time in 12 years.
Micah R. Johnson, now 36, is standing trial in Knox County Criminal Court for first-degree murder in a March 2008 attack on Carrie Daugherty, 24, an acquaintance who was living in the North Knoxville home of Johnson's girlfriend.
Johnson slipped up on Daugherty at night as she came home to the Columbia Avenue house from her serving job at Barley's in the Old City, pummeling her in the head with a brick and shovel and wrapping rope around her neck, authorities allege.
A jury convicted Johnson of murder in 2011 and he went off to prison for more than a decade. But in 2022, a state appeals court ruled he deserved a retrial, finding his original defense team made mistakes that robbed him of a fair trial.
Now he's free on bond and represented by Gregory P. Isaacs, who won him the retrial, and Ashlee Mathis. Knox County District Attorney Generals TaKisha Fitzgerald and Larry Dillon are prosecuting him.
For the defense team this week, the strategy is mostly about getting the jury to think about Johnson's mental health problems at the time of the murder. Judge Scott Green, the prosecutors and the defense took extra time this week talking individually with potential jurors to understand their thoughts about mental illness and whether someone could commit a crime without really understanding what they'd done.
Fitzgerald and Dillon must convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson killed Daugherty. Isaacs and Mathis, because they're trying to use Johnson's mental illness as a defense, also must show the jury with clear and convincing evidence -- a lower legal standard -- that he suffered the impairment in 2008.
Amanda Corts, 41, shared her home with Daugherty at the time of the killing. She'd dated Johnson the prior year until he attacked a student in September 2007 on the University of Tennessee campus.
Questioned by Isaacs, Corts acknowledged that Johnson's behavior and demeanor changed dramatically around the time of that September attack. She said he was hospitalized at an area psychiatric ward.
The couple grew apart, she testified. She assumed he was taking psychiatric medication for his health.
Daugherty moved into her house in October 2007. By December, Johnson and Corts slowly began to get back together, Corts said.
She told jurors she, Daugherty and Johnson interacted repeatedly in the days before the killing. She told jurors she noticed nothing unusual or disturbing about Johnson's behavior during those days.
Daugherty was killed early March 19, 2008, as she arrived home from a shift at Barley's. The killer delivered violent, fatal blows to her head.
Corts told jurors she didn't hear the attack. But she recalled waking up from a medication-induced sleep that morning to the sound of some kind of a noise.
She saw nothing unusual when she looked outside. She went back to bed.
The next thing she recalled was being awakened by Knoxville police, and realizing something awful had happened to her dear friend, who would have turned 40 in May if she were alive today.
Police found Daugherty's body near her SUV in front of the house. Suspicion quickly turned to Johnson as the killer.
Corts went to stay at her parents' home in Loudon County. While there, Johnson called for her and tried to speak to her in a rambling conversation in which he expressed remorse, testimony at the first trial showed.
When she finally was ready to drive in her Prius back to Knoxville, she said she found gravel on the car in the shape of a heart and the words, "I'm dead." Johnson knew where her parents lived.
Testimony in the retrial began Wednesday and by Thursday afternoon the state was ready to wrap up its case with an appearance by Knox County Medical Examiner Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan.
The trial is certain to continue into next week, when Isaacs and Mathis plan to call a series of medical professionals in Johnson's defense. One juror was excused from the case Thursday because of a family emergency.
The trial has been marked by testy exchanges between Fitzgerald, Isaacs and even the judge. With jurors watching, the defense and prosecution have talked over each other and interrupted each other. There've been tense conversations at the bench, presumably out of jurors' earshot.
While jurors were out Thursday afternoon, Green admonished each lawyer against unnecessary and churlish behavior. Isaacs twice moved for a mistrial on alleged errors, both of which Green denied.
Isaacs has tried previously without success to get Fitzgerald removed from the case.
"Now let's get along and let's try this lawsuit," Green admonished both Thursday.