NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judge fired an attorney for two murder defendants when the lawyer failed to show up to court for their trials.

The Times-Picayune reports (http://bit.ly/ZIHcaX ) attorney Martin Regan represented two accused killers, both scheduled for trial Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder. But neither Regan nor his associates appeared before Judge Ben Willard.

Assistant District Attorney John Alford asked the judge to hold Regan in contempt of court. Willard declined, and instead ordered that Regan be terminated as the attorney for both defendants. He postponed the trials, and appointed the Orleans Parish Public Defenders office to represent them.

Regan filed motions Tuesday morning with the clerk of court, requesting that the judge postpone the trials. But he did not show up in the courtroom.

Regan’s clients — 42-year-old Yolanda Davis and 23-year-old Roy Joyner — were brought to the courthouse from jail, Alford said. The witnesses against them and the families of their accused victims were in court. Prosecutors, Alford said, were ready to proceed with either case.

Joyner is accused in the October 2008 slaying of 20-year-old Jamar Douglas, shot several times in an apartment on the West Bank. Joyner was still in high school when he was booked with second-degree murder.

Davis, his second client scheduled for trial Tuesday, is also charged with second-degree murder. Davis, a diagnosed schizophrenic, is accused of stabbing 49-year-old Renee Johnson in the chest with a steak knife in December 2010. She was originally booked with aggravated battery, until Johnson died at the hospital three days later.