Judge questions handling of Williamson County murder trial and calls for consideration of new evidence

FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WSMV) – A convicted murderer could get a retrial because a judge says new evidence must be considered in a 37-year-old murder case.

Williamson County Judge Deanna Johnson released a scathing report criticizing the prosecution's handling of James Taylor's trial in 1988.

Taylor was accused of murdering 89-year-old Frances Schmidt in her home in 1987. He received a life sentence and spent more than 30 years in prison for the crime. Taylor was released from prison early on parole and now lives back in Williamson County, where he regularly visits the public library.

He has walked through this door many times, but not once to read fiction.

“I've never read a Harry Potter book. But I've been reading Jackson vs. Virginia all day,” Taylor laughed.

He is after the non-fiction and facts that prove his innocence.

“To clear my name. Period,” he claims. “To clear my name.”

Taylor has hired two lawyers, Davis Griffin and Chris Smith, to assist in his mission.

“It gives you goosebumps to think about spending 32 years in prison for something he didn't do,” Smith said.

Taylor says crucial evidence was never presented at trial. As a result, he spent 32 years behind bars reading about the law.

“Go to the law library, work on your case, work on your case, work on your case. That's all I did,” Taylor said.

While in prison, Taylor learned how to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and his lawyer says those efforts were successful.

“We're actually only here because James filed a FOIA request from a prison cell that essentially broke the story,” Smith said.

What Taylor found in that records request led him to the original crime scene where Frances Schmidt was killed and revealed what he said police did not find.

Taylor said pages of an FBI hair and fiber report were never provided to the defense team, but when he got his hands on them through the FOIA request, he found that the report indicated that “no other hairs like the suspect's were found.”

“The jury never heard at trial that something was sent to the FBI and a report came back saying there was no match between Taylor's hair and the victim's nightgown,” Smith explained. “They never heard that.”

Taylor knows his fingerprints were never found at the crime scene, but what he didn't realize until he got his hands on certain pages of a TBI fingerprint report was that police compared the prints of four other suspects just before the trial. His lawyer says those pages of the report were never presented to the defense team.

“They say they have no doubt they have the right man, but they fail to mention that they are testing other suspects literally up until the day of the trial,” Smith said.

The trial happened so long ago that hardly anyone involved in the case is still alive, with the exception of Joe Baugh, the district attorney who brought the case to trial in 1988.

“You know the evidence. Is there any chance you missed something?” asked WSMV 4 news anchor Amanda Hara.

“There's always the possibility that you missed something. But circumstantial evidence requires that every single theory except the guilt theory be ruled out,” Baugh replied.

Baugh says that even if he missed something, the evidence he presented to the jury was beyond any reasonable doubt.

Baugh said an item stolen from the crime scene was later linked to Taylor.

“No other person showed the ring to their acquaintances, nor was the ring known to have been in the possession of anyone other than Taylor from the time of the theft until its recovery,” Baugh said.

However, Taylor's lawyers argue that the person who once testified that Taylor tried to sell him a ring from the victim's home later testified that it was not that ring, saying, “That's not the one I had.”

Baugh also said he suspected Taylor had committed a burglary near the victim's home a few days before her murder.

However, Taylor was never convicted of this burglary.

Taylor's efforts to clear his name took a decisive turn in June 2024, when Judge Deanna Johnson ruled that it was not too late to examine the new evidence he had allegedly uncovered.

Following the hearing, Judge Johnson sharply criticized the prosecutors in her ruling, saying they had failed to disclose evidence that could have led to a different outcome of the trial.

She also wrote that the district attorney misrepresented the case to the court when he claimed that no fingerprints were found at the crime scene and that police were still investigating four other suspects at the start of the trial.

Judge Johnson also wrote, “The State tried Mr. Taylor without knowing whether they had their man. That is problematic.”

WSMV4 Investigates showed Baugh the judge's decision. In response, he wrote, “There was no deliberate failure to disclose exculpatory evidence. All evidence known to me was disclosed to the defense or presented at trial.”

Baugh says the fact that further investigations took place shortly before the trial “does not add anything to the case unless another perpetrator was implicated in the case. But that was not the case.”

Taylor said all he wants now is a fair trial.

On the phone, Frances Schmidt's grandson said that Taylor had already received a fair trial in 1988. He had attended every day of the trial and agreed with the guilty verdict.

Baugh agrees. “I am certain of Mr. Taylor's guilt because all the evidence points against him and no one else.”

We reached out to the office of Stacy Edmonson, the current Williamson County District Attorney. Her office did not respond.

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