{"id":395777,"date":"2026-08-02T19:26:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T19:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/395777\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T19:26:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T19:26:45","slug":"attorneys-request-for-a-new-tanner-horner-trial-denied","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/395777\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorneys\u2019 request for a new Tanner Horner trial denied"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former FedEx driver who was sentenced to death in May for the capital murder of 7-year-old Wise County girl Athena Strand has had his request for a new trial<\/a> denied.<\/p>\n

Tanner Horner\u2019s attorneys filed the motion in Tarrant County on June 4, alleging that widespread media coverage intimidated some key witnesses who refused to testify and made it impossible for the 34-year-old defendant to get a fair trial.<\/p>\n

According to law, the judge had until July 20 to rule on the motion. Judge George Gallagher opted not to sign the order for a new trial, meaning the motion was automatically denied, a court spokesperson told the Star-Telegram.<\/p>\n

Click to resize<\/p>\n

Derek Adame, a criminal defense attorney<\/a> in Denton County and a certified death penalty lawyer who is not involved in the Horner case, said filing a motion for a new trial is a common strategy, even when attorneys don\u2019t have much ground to stand on and don\u2019t expect the request to be granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my experience, it\u2019s pretty rare that a motion for new trial gets granted,\u201d Adame told the Star-Telegram during a phone interview in July. \u201cThe bar is pretty high. You basically have to show, you have to prove that there now exists evidence, or evidence that you did not have before during the trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building a case for the future is another reason attorneys ask for a new trial, Adame said. Even if the motion isn\u2019t successful, it still gets the information into the court record and gives the defense something to build on during the appeals process.<\/p>\n

Capital murder trial<\/p>\n

The capital murder trial ran from April 7 through May 5 in Tarrant County\u2019s 297th District Court. On the first day, Horner pleaded guilty<\/a> to kidnapping and killing Athena after delivering a package to her family\u2019s home near Paradise on Nov. 30, 2022. The former FedEx driver was arrested on Dec. 2, 2022, after investigators traced the package and saw a video clip of him placing Athena in the truck.<\/p>\n

Following Horner\u2019s guilty plea, the jury heard evidence from both sides to help them decide on a punishment verdict. Prosecutors introduced video and audio evidence<\/a> showing that Horner sexually assaulted the child before brutally murdering her and dumping her body in the water along the Trinity River.<\/p>\n

During the course of the trial, Horner\u2019s attorneys brought in expert witnesses<\/a> to talk about the defendant\u2019s autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, lead exposure and troubled home life. They tried to convince the jury that he should receive life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

After less than three hours of deliberation, the jury handed down the death penalty<\/a>. They voted unanimously that Horner is a future danger to society and that there were not sufficient mitigating circumstances to justify a life sentence.<\/p>\n

All death penalty sentences in Texas are automatically appealed, and Horner\u2019s attorneys filed notice of his appeal in May, according to court records. That appeal is still pending in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published August 1, 2026 12:07 PM.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Harriet Ramos<\/a><\/p>\n

Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n

Harriet Ramos covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former FedEx driver who was sentenced to death in May for the capital murder of 7-year-old Wise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-395777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}