Downs motion for new trial denied

Following a hearing Thursday, Oct. 17, 135th District Court Judge Stephen Williams denied a motion for new trial for Blake Downs.

The ruling was handed down Friday morning.

In the Order on Defendant’s Motion for New Trial, Williams wrote: “On this 17th day of October, 2024, came on to be heard the above motion. The state and defendant appeared and announced ready. The court heard the testimony and argument of counsel. Wherefore premises considered, the defendant’s motion for a new trial is denied.”

Downs was found guilty of murder in the death of Coewin Boerm at the end of an eight-day trial in August. The jury gave him 30 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison system.

The Motion in Arrest of Judgment and Motion to Dismiss was filed Sept. 5 and an amended motion was filed Sept. 16.

The motion sought to obtain a new trial for Downs and cited new evidence that would have been favorable to the accused that had been discovered since trial.

In the filing, Downs’ attorney Brent Dornburg cited Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 40.001 that “provides that a new trial shall be granted an accused where material evidence favorable to the accused has been discovered since trial.”

The provision provides a four-step test that needs to be satisfied in order for a new trial to be granted: newly discovered evidence was unknown or unavailable to the defendant at the time of trial; defendant’s failure to discover or obtain the new evidence was not due to defendant’s lack of diligence; the new evidence is admissible and not merely cumulative, corroborative, collateral, or impeaching; and the new evidence is probably true and will probably bring about a different result in the trial.

Dornburg wrote in the motion that the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office had knowledge of the new evidence — a video that contains audio of the shots that were fired in the case — but failed to provide any documentation, reports or evidence of the video to the Calhoun County District Attorney’s Office. 

“The evidence was unknown to the defendant at the time of trial,” he wrote.

Dornburg claimed in the motion the new evidence “presents information which directly contradicts the testimony of the state’s expert, Michael Maloney, and will bring about a different result in trial.”

Maloney testified on the sixth day of the trial. He has been a private forensic consultant for 13 years and was a special agent for the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service. He is the author of two procedural guides on death and crime scene investigation.

During the trial, he testified they used Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges to map out the garage where Boerm died.

“It is considered the gold standard for re-construction,” said Maloney.