District Court Judge Thomas Moore denied all motions made at the pre-trial hearing on Friday for Jason Hull and Irvine Hodge, two of three men charged with armed robbery and murder at the Emerald Lady jewelry store in May of 1998.
Hull and Hodge are accused of entering the Emerald Lady on Back Street around noon on May 8, 1998, holding owner Larry Davis, his wife, a store clerk and several patrons at gunpoint while demanding cash and jewelry.
Davis was shot and killed as the robbers left the store.
Hodge and Hull were also indicted for shooting a Dogs-On-Guard security officer, Gwendolyn Rollins, but are not facing federal charges in connection with that occurrence.
Defense attorneys Bernard van Sluytman and George Hodge made several motions on behalf of Irvine Hodge and Hull in District Court Friday.
They moved to have U.S. Magistrate Judge Geoffrey Barnard recused from the case because he was the judge who sentenced Irvine Hodge in an earlier Emerald Lady robbery case.
But Moore said he found no instance where the judge in the case had displayed either favorable or disparaging conduct toward either defendant.
Moore also rejected defense arguments that the case be dismissed from U.S. District Court because the federal government had no jurisdiction. He said, "This is exactly the kind of case that was intended to be covered" by the Hobbs Act, under which Hull and Irvine Hodge are being charged.
Van Sluytman also tried to have the court prevent the prosecution from presenting a prior conviction for his client Hodge for armed robbery at the same jewelry store several months prior to the killing.
Moore called the motion premature, saying prosecutors had not indicated they would bring up the prior record as part of their case.
The judge also rejected a motion to disallow the identification of Hull, who was chosen by Emerald Lady witnesses from a police photo array. Attorney Hodge claimed he should have been given an opportunity to question the police officers who presented the photo array to the witnesses, because he was not given the names of those who had identified his client.
The two defendants, dressed in green prison garb, sat quietly throughout the daylong proceedings. They have been held at the Golden Grove Correctional Facility since their arrested early this year.
No date has been set for the start of the Emerald Lady murder trial. Attorney Hodge said he expects it may be scheduled to begin in October. U.S. Attorney James Hurd Jr. previously indicated he would announce his intention to seek the death penalty prior to the start of the case; to date, prosecutors have made no such declaration.