Roberts trial delayed due to court error

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)-  The murder trial of Darryl Roberts has been postponed by two weeks.
Roberts is charged with first degree murder in the 2023 shooting of Christopher Wright in front of Patten Towers.

It had been scheduled to start yesterday, as a jury had been selected Tuesday morning.

However, in the initial reading of instructions, a court officer read a piece of paper that referred to Roberts as a convicted felon.

That information was not supposed to be told to the jury before the trial.

This caused Roberts’ defense to request a new jury believing the jury had been tainted.

Judge Boyd Patterson ruled, “For the record, the jury was not sworn, there was not a jury in this case, so, to make sure that both sides have a completely fair trial, the law would allow for us…to proceed starting with a new jury panel on April 14.”

It is worth noting that Roberts had been arrested over 60 times per Hamilton County court records.

However, jurors in any case cannot know a defendants’ prior history before a trial.