Left to right, defense attorney's Tom Dillard and David Eldridge and defendants A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams, and attorney Loretta Cravens listen during a motions hearing Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. Johnson and former teammate Michael Williams are charged with two counts each of aggravated rape and two counts of aiding and abetting the other in those rapes after a female athlete, then 19, told police Johnson and Williams forced her to have sex with both men during a party in November of 2014. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL)

By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel

KNOXVILLE — An appellate court on Monday gave the green light to a pretrial appeal by a former star University of Tennessee linebacker and another ex-Vol accused of rape on the legally groundbreaking issue over access to social media accounts of witnesses in criminal cases.

A three-judge panel of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals issued an order Monday granting what is known as an interlocutory appeal in the case of former Vols A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams. The decision puts the pair's separate trials on aggravated rape charges on hold.

The appeal request came after Knox County Criminal Court Judge Bob McGee shot down a bid by attorneys Stephen Ross Johnson and Tom Dillard, on behalf of A.J. Johnson, and David Eldridge, on behalf of Williams, to subpoena digital conversations from the ex-Vols' accuser and three other witnesses before, during and after the November 2014 encounter in which the pair are accused of rape.

"An interlocutory review of the trial court's order, in total, will prevent needless and irreparable harm and prevent protracted litigation concerning the accessibility and discoverability of digital information from the service providers and customer-witnesses," the appellate court order stated.

The players face charges of two counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aiding and abetting the other in aggravated rape.

McGee has repeatedly said the case is plowing new legal ground at a time when communication via social media, Internet messaging services and text messages is now the norm. He authorized the appeal request, known as an interlocutory appeal because it is filed pretrial, in hopes of getting legal guidance on both the defense's right to such information and the method in which it should be obtained.

The appellate court was not required to hear the appeal at the pre-trial stage, so it is legally significant the panel has elected to do so. Its decision, which won't come for months, will shape the law on defense access to witnesses' digital communication when, as was the case here, police don't seek to preserve it.

The attorneys for the two former players insist what the accuser and the three witnesses — female friends of hers — said in texts, on Facebook, Snapchat, Yik Yak and the like are key to proving the former football players have been falsely accused.

The appellate court also authorized an appeal by prosecutors Leslie Nassios and Kyle Hixson of the portion of McGee's order that allows the players to seek the same digital information from the social media providers. The providers are resisting any effort to turn over customer postings.

A.J. Johnson, then a star linebacker for the Vols, and Williams are accused of raping a female UT athlete during a drunken party at Johnson's South Knoxville apartment. The ex-Vols contend the encounter was consensual, and that their accuser claimed rape to protect her reputation. Evidence revealed so far indicates Johnson and his accuser had been flirting for months and that the then 19-year-old woman willingly went to Johnson's bedroom to meet him.

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