Defense attorneys who represent a man who is to go to trial in Tarrant County in seven days in the strangling of a 7-year-old girl are looking ahead to the scope of testimony in the punishment phase of the death penalty case if he is found guilty.
In a motion filed last week, the office of the regional public defender for capital cases asked Judge George Gallagher to order that experts refrain from using two terms, psychopath and sociopath, in reference to the defendant, Tanner Horner, who is accused of killing Athena Strand inside his FedEx truck in Wise County.
The motion asks Judge Gallagher to exclude in the punishment phase “any and all psychiatric or psychological expert testimony offered by the state that incorporates a prediction” on whether Horner is a future danger or will constitute a continuing threat to society, attorneys Susan Anderson and Steven Goble wrote in the motion. Future dangerousness is one of two questions at the core of sentencing in death penalty cases…