Judge grants filing extension for Whisnant
KNOXVILLE — A federal magistrate has granted a filing deadline extension for attorneys of Douglas V. Whisnant.
On Wednesday (Dec. 5), Magistrate Judge H. Bruce Guyton granted the request, which was made by Oneida attorneys Leif Jeffers and Mark Strange, who are representing Whisnant on federal weapons charges.
The filing deadline is for post-hearing briefs in Whisnant’s motion to suppress the federal government’s evidence against him. That evidence was originally presented by then-Scott County Sheriff’s Department Chief Detective Donnie Anderson, who has since been fired from the Sheriff’s Department and indicted on criminal charges. Based on that development, Whisnant’s attorneys argued that Anderson’s testimony was not credible and argued for the evidence seized in a March search of Whisnant’s Ditney Trail home — which includes the pair of Ruger 10-22 rifles that are the source of the federal weapons charges against him — to be suppressed.
In a suppression hearing in early November, federal prosecutors presented testimony from Sheriff’s Department Captain Tommy Jeffers, who was also present for the March search of Whisnant’s home and property, and who witnessed the weapons being retrieved from the home.
In that testimony, Capt. Jeffers testified that it was he — not Anderson, as had previously been testified to — who noticed the white drywall dust on a poker handle near a fireplace, dust that allegedly turned out to be from a hidden compartment within the wall used to hide the firearms.
In granting the extension, attorneys for both the U.S. government and the defense will have until Dec. 18 to file post-hearing briefs.
On Tuesday (Dec. 4), U.S. Attorney James R. Dedrick filed his own post-hearing brief, citing Capt. Jeffers testimony at the November hearing and asking that the motion to suppress be denied.
Authorities were searching Whisnant’s home in March under the suspicion that he murdered his ex-wife, Jean Johnson, who went missing from her Ditney Trail home nearby in February. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms assisted in that search due to the belief that Whisnant might have explosives rigged on his property. No explosives were found, and authorities were unable to uncover enough evidence to bring charges against Whisnant based on Johnson’s disappearance, but ATF agents successfully sought a federal indictment against Whisnant on weapons charges.
The investigation into the disappearance of Jean Johnson is ongoing, with no sign of her whereabouts and no formal charges lodged against Whisnant.
Whisnant also faces violation of probation charges at the state level. District Attorney General Wm. Paul Phillips said last week that the state will take up those charges once the federal case against Whisnant is complete.