Retrial of Kevin Andre Towles delayed

Kevin Andre Towles

There's a delay in an Etowah County capital murder re-trial and the judge is concerned that proposed budget cuts could affect it.

Kevin Andre Towles of Boaz was set to go on trial a second time starting May 4 in the 2006 beating death of his girlfriend's 5-year-old son, Geontae Glass.

But one of his attorneys, Dani Bone, came to court with a large cast on his left arm and shoulder, the result of rotator cuff surgery ten days ago.

While Bone said he could still do a lot of his legal work and his pain is manageable, he's under a doctor's care and is limited on the amount of driving he can do.

Both sets of attorneys were agreeable to try the case almost anytime, but Bone preferred February as a time for a retrial while prosecutor Marcus Reid pushed for an August date, citing other capital murder cases coming up in September, October, November, January and May.

Circuit Judge Allen Millican also favored the August date and tentatively set the trial for that month. Later, that date was pushed to November 16. 2015.

One of Millican's concerns was proposed state budget cuts that he said from the bench would "hit us hard," up to 1,500 positions in the state court system.

Millican said the cuts would leave the Etowah County Circuit Clerk's office with just Circuit Clerk Cassandra Johnson and two other deputy clerks and he doesn't see how the courthouse could function under those circumstances.

Towles was convicted of capital murder and sent to Alabama's death row in 2009 in the Geontae Glass murder. However, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the case and remanded it to Etowah County for retrial.

At issue was testimony from Towle's other son saying his father had also beaten him, too. The appeals court ruled the testimony should not have been admissible since Towles was never charged or convicted of that crime.

Towles' girlfriend, Shalinda Glass, pleaded guilty to murder in 2012 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the case.

Kevin Towles remains in the Etowah County Jail, having been brought back from state prison after his case was remanded.