Hey everyone, happy new year. This is Jillian and you are listening to Court Junkie. As you

could probably tell from the title of the episode, this isn't a normal Court Junkie episode.

Instead, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the cases I covered in 2018, as

well as to give you some updates on a few of them. So before I get started, if there are

any episodes from 2018 that you have not listened to yet, it would probably be a good idea

to make sure you're all caught up on them before continuing on with this one. I don't want

to spoil any of them for you. But for everyone else, let's get into it.

The very first case I covered in 2018 was the trial of Timothy Bats. It was undisputed

that Timothy tragically shot and killed his 11-year-old daughter, Tamiya, in August of 2016.

It was even undisputed that Tamiya didn't intend on killing his daughter, or even intend

on shooting her. Tamiya told police that he had thought Tamiya was an intruder, and even

prosecutors believed that that was the case. But the big question was, what should the

punishment be? And as you might recall, Tamiya had a prior criminal history. He was a convicted

felon and wasn't even supposed to be in possession of a gun. And many people believe

that because of that, his punishment was more harsh than someone who didn't have such

a history. Timothy was eventually found guilty of being in possession of a gun and of tampering

with evidence. If you remember, he admittedly panicked and hid the gun after what happened.

But the jury was hung on the main charge, reckless homicide. Just prior to his sentencing,

Timothy reached an agreement with prosecutors. He would plead guilty in exchange for the

recommendation that his sentence for illegally possessing a firearm be served concurrently.

The judge in the case sentenced him to serve four years in prison. And that's where

Timothy still is today. After I released that episode, I heard from a number of you listeners

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