Hudson objects to delay in trial
By Catharin Shepard
Published in News on April 1, 2010 1:46 PM
District Four District Attorney Dewey Hudson filed a motion Wednesday against a request for continuance issued by lawyer Richard McNeil, the defense attorney for a former North Carolina Marine charged with killing a pregnant colleague.
McNeil filed the motion for a three-month continuance after a knee injury he suffered at a Goldsboro hotel in January reportedly hampered his ability to prepare for the trial of Cesar Laurean.
Laurean is charged in connection with the death of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach. Unless a continuance is issued in the case, he is set to be tried in Wayne County in June.
A judge will decide today whether to grant the continuance. Hudson said the case has gone on long enough without being tried.
"I'm opposed to the continuance, and we're going to have a hearing tomorrow for the judge to make a decision," he said Wednesday afternoon.
Hudson said he sought to hold the trial earlier than this summer, and had wanted to proceed with the trial last fall.
"It ought to be tried. The case is (going on) two years and ... four months, it's time to try the case," he said.
The district attorney said he has heard of cases being granted a continuance in other instances where a lawyer has been injured. One of McNeil's other cases has already been continued, Hudson said.
If the judge does grant a continuance in the case, it is "not going to be the end of the planet Earth, but we have conferred with everybody in Goldsboro, and we have planned for June 28 for some time," Hudson said.
Rescheduling the case could adversely affect the scheduling of other cases scheduled to go to trial, he said.
Both the prosecution and defense in the case agreed to move the trial from Onslow County to Wayne County.
"I'm satisfied, I'm very satisfied with Wayne County, I think we all are," he said.
Hudson said his office was, and still is, preparing to go to trial as planned.