The trial for the Crystal Rogers murder case may be in danger of a delay after Joseph and Steven Lawson appeared in court again Thursday.
They are both charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence.
In an uneventful 10-minute hearing Thursday, Steven Lawson appeared in person and his son, Joseph Lawson, appeared via zoom from prison
The hearing started with the introduction of Steven’s new attorneys, Darren Wolff and Zach Buckler after he fired attorney Ted Lavit earlier this month
The two are EPA contractors for the District Attorney’s Office and they started the hearing by acknowledging the amount of case information they need to go through.
Wolff said they haven’t had the chance to look at the actual case file but the Commonwealth did turn over three sets of discovery.
The next step was to figure out if the father-son duo and Brooks Houck would have separate trials and if Steven Lawson would choose to use his interviews as evidence.
Given that his attorneys were officially assigned the case 48 hours before the hearing, they asked for more time. Wolff asked for 45 days to go through the two terabytes of information they had just received.
Judge Charles Sims agreed to give Lawson’s attorneys more time to make a decision, but with a mountain of information to go through in about six months time, Wolff hinted at the possibility for a later motion to delay the trial start date.
Judge Sims said that bridge will be crossed when they get there but his goal is to get his cases handled as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The trial is currently set to start February 10, 2025, but that is starting to look less likely.
In the meantime, it is still unclear if the suspects will be tried together.
The next court date for the Lawson’s to figure out if their trials will be separate will be on October 4.
Source: WAVE
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