Clad in black and white stripes, Devin Parker — the only man indicted for the murder of University graduate students Chandrasekhar Komma and Kiran Allam — appeared before Judge Richard “Chip” Moore on Thursday.His trial on two counts of second-degree murder was scheduled for May 24, 2010.Parker’s defense attorney Jim Holt protested setting the court date because he wanted adequate time to have outside experts review DNA results that were not available for the court date. Prosecutors were scheduled to present the last portion of DNA test results to Parker’s defense today. But the test results had not come in from the state forensics lab in time for the hearing.Prosecutor Steven Danielson said he didn’t know why the results were not ready but expects them soon.Holt told Moore the defense would need more than a year to review the results because the prosecution has had that much time to present the evidence.But Moore entertained Danielson’s motion to set the trial date saying he would be understanding if the defense needed more time to review the evidence as the trial date nears.Moore set another court date Dec. 17 to update the status of the defense and prosecution.Though a date for a trial has been set, Danielson said typically either the defense or prosecution usually asks for a continuance, and it would not surprise him if the trial was postponed given its nature.”We are going to do everything we can to get it going,” Danielson said. “A lot of time, especially with complex cases like a murder, it is hard to get it off the ground the first time for any number of reasons.”- – – -Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]
Double homicide trial set for May
October 29, 2009